


Currents and Tides

by glimmerglanger



Series: By the Sea [2]
Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - 1940s, Background Rexsoka, Discussion of Hate Crimes, For Characters Appearing Later, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Character Death, Period Appropriate Homophobia, Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sequel, Suicidal Ideation, Underwater Battles, Violence, merman au, not main characters, other background pairings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:21:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 78,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28360005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glimmerglanger/pseuds/glimmerglanger
Summary: The ocean brought both boons and hardship and ever had, Her very nature changeable and unpredictable. Cody's people had long ago given over attempting to predict what Sho’cye would deliver to them. They’d worked, for a time, to placate Her, but such a thing couldn’t be done.Their lives demanded an ability to shift and adjust to the changes brought by the currents and the tides.OR the sequel to "Flotsam and Jetsam."
Relationships: CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi
Series: By the Sea [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2066826
Comments: 1107
Kudos: 1114





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Here we go! Six chapters, one epilogue, and a happy ending for Cody and Obi-Wan (eventually). Hope you all enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it (if not more, with any luck)! 
> 
> Brief note to clarify that there is no magic in this au.

The ocean brought both boons and hardship and ever had, Her very nature changeable and unpredictable. Kote’s people had long ago given over attempting to predict what Sho’cye would deliver to them. They’d worked, for a time, to placate Her, but such a thing couldn’t be done.

Their lives demanded an ability to shift and adjust to the changes brought by the currents and the tides. 

Kote had always excelled at that, at reading Her whims and rising to meet any challenge thrown his way. That didn’t mean he always understood Her. He still felt unsure if She’d been pleased with him - or furious, brutal and punishing - when dealing out the luck of his last battle. He had won, secured victory, but nearly died in the process. He  _ should  _ have died, by all rights, which was usually a sign of the Goddess’ displeasure.

Instead, Sho’cye had brought him to Obi-Wan’s care.

And Obi-Wan had healed him.

The sun broke through the surface of the water as Kote plunged away from the shore, streaks of red-gold light all around him. The water felt wonderful, a relief after so long confined in the tub. His side throbbed, injuries not quite healed pulling with each shift of muscle down his tail. It hurt, but he was going home.

The past weeks - months - had all been working up to the journey back into the sea. He did not entirely recognize the place where he’d washed ashore. Even exploring the waters the previous day had revealed no obvious marks of identification.

But Kote would find his way back; he knew how the ocean moved. It would not be difficult to backtrack, to find where the last battle had been fought. From there, he would find his people, his armies.

They would still be alive. Still fighting.

He had to believe that.

Belief had kept him going through his convalescence, through the slow, dragging effort of healing. Hope, nurtured and kept close in his chest, allowed him to wait while the injuries in his gut - inside of him - mended together. He’d relied on hope, belief, and Obi-Wan.

Obi-Wan, who had tended him without hesitation, endlessly. Who dragged him away from the seabirds and patched him back together. Who kept Kote alive, when he should have died. Who Kote had left, back on the shore, empty-eyed.

There was no other option. Kote knew it, had known it for weeks, for months. They were not of the same worlds. And he could not stay in the little cabin with his human, not with his people at war, not with all of them likely believing him dead. It was not that Obi-Wan’s blank-eyed, empty expression did not matter to him.

It was that there was nothing Kote could do to ease it.

Kote should have been moving deeper, out into the darker water far below the surface, where the pressure would push against him, comforting and secure. He knew it. But he moved through the glow at the surface and then slid up through into the air, halting his forward progress, unable to stop himself, his chest an ache. 

He bobbed in the water and looked back towards the shore, telling himself not to, even as he did. Looking back never served anyone. It never--

Kote could see Obi-Wan, a small shape on the already distant shore. He’d gotten out of the crashing waves, at least. He’d moved a bit up the sand, apparently, before sitting. He was just... slumped on the sand, listing a little to one side. His arms were limp, hands resting in the sand. Kote could not see his expression, but could see the red-gold of Obi-Wan’s hair, catching the sun’s rising light.

Shining. A beacon.

Kote floated there, and felt, oddly, as though he were being cleaved up through the middle of his chest. He breathed, heart a terrible throb, for a long moment, wasting time. He tried to will Obi-Wan to get up, to go back to his cabin, to give some - some sign. Anything.

But he only sat there, head bowed over, and--

Kote could not go back to him. Not yet, anyway. His people needed him. He had a war to handle, he had duties. Responsibilities. And Obi-Wan would be there, when he came back. He’d made Obi-Wan promise and he hoped that the vow would be enough to keep Obi-Wan from slipping away, while he was gone.

Kote sank below the surface again, jaw clenched so tight that it  _ hurt _ , forcing himself to turn and plunge down, down into the welcoming depths. If he stayed any longer, even a second more, he knew he would go back. And he could not delay, not even for Obi-Wan and the aching in his chest.

#

Obi-Wan had no clear recollection of how long he sat on the sand before Boga somehow marshalled enough courage to reach him. He blinked at the first wet smash of her nose against his cheek. She fell to licking him at once, making high, unhappy noises in the back of her throat the entire time.

She ended up knocking him sideways - she was growing  _ quickly  _ and showing no signs of stopping - and Obi-Wan caught himself, one hand in the sand, the other in her fur. “Oh,” he said, feeling out of focus in his own head, “you must be hungry, hm? Tired of waiting out here for me?”

He pushed to his feet and found that his arms and legs all worked, just as well as they had before. He brushed sand off of his palms, aware that his pants had dried, stiff and unpleasant around his legs. 

Boga danced in little circles around him in the sand, nudging at his legs and hands, still whining. He patted absently at her head, barely feeling the fur under his hand, and glanced back, once more, at the endless surface of the sea.

Nothing broke the surface. 

Nothing would.

Obi-Wan swallowed, heavily, and took the first step towards the cabin. Boga kept pace with him the entire way, instead of running ahead as she so often did. She did, at least, stop whining as they got further from the water, panting heavily, instead.

Obi-Wan hesitated, outside of the door to the cabin. His heart tripped in his chest, falling out of rhythm with a sharp stab of agony. He braced himself, exhaled, and opened the door.

It was the first time in so long that the little cabin had been empty. The tub didn’t have water in it. His chair still lay against the far wall, where Cody had flung it with his tail. There were two plates in his little sink. There were all the signs of what his life had briefly been, but…

Obi-Wan rubbed at Boga’s ears when she whined again. He filled her bowl with water and fixed her some food. He straightened the chair and the table, cleaned the plates, even went out and tended the garden. He did all the things that needed doing, the little patterns of work that had grown out of necessity.

But there was no one to talk to, besides Boga, who did not talk back. No one to share the next part of the  _ Odyssey _ with, to move on to the  _ Aeneid _ , no one to touch or--

Obi-Wan sat down against the tub, leaned his head against the side of it, and worked to keep his breathing even. He’d known well enough to expect this aching, awful pressure in his chest, selfish as it was.

Cody had needed to go. It was good - a miracle, really - that he’d recovered from his injuries, that he would get to return to his people. His family. His  _ kingdom _ .

Obi-Wan swallowed, his throat so tight that it hurt, and curled an arm around Boga, failing to stop the way his hands shook, when she tried to crawl into his lap, the sun sinking on the horizon. He’d tried not to allow his mind to circle back to the morning, but it did, horribly, dragging him along.

His breath hitched, again, remembering the final feeling of Cody in his arms, Cody’s mouth on his, soft and tasting of salt. Cody had held him, so briefly, had asked him to tear out his weaving, before leaving, perhaps as a result of a misunderstanding of the story Obi-Wan had tried to tell him.

Obi-Wan’s mind caught on the request, desperately looking for something to focus on. He did not weave anything. He made nothing. He pressed his face against Boga’s fur, trying to breathe around the tightness in his throat, and ached for loss, for the quiet, and for a story never finished.

#

The sea teemed with life, in a way that made the surface world seem empty. The sky was so open, full of unoccupied space. Perhaps there were a few birds, here and there, interrupting the emptiness. But they seemed few and far between to Kote.

Below the waters, everything lived. He was never alone as he plunged further from the surface, moving cautiously, for he was alone and weaponless. He’d long ago learned to fight with nothing but his body, but... He would have felt better with a spear.

Nothing attacked him in the first segment of his journey. He did his best to resist the urge to push too far; he remembered, too well, the hurt and exhaustion of his first trip out to the tidepool. He stopped, when his body grew weary and the ache in his side grew to a throb. He could not risk making himself too weak. Not in the ocean.

He found no sign of the lines or the war or his people, that first day.

Sho’cye had carried him far, it seemed, before dumping him on the beach. He pushed that thought to the side, grabbing a great, slow-moving crab to eat as he tucked himself into a slowly swaying patch of thick kelp. 

The shell cracked, satisfying, under his hands, but he barely tasted the meat. He wondered, glancing surfaceward, if Obi-Wan had remembered to eat at all. If he’d gone back to the cabin. Perhaps he was still on the beach, staring out into the sea, waiting--

Kote forced himself to relax his jaw. 

Obi-Wan was strong and clever and good. And he had promised that he would still be alive, when Kote came back. Kote had to trust that he would keep his word. Trust was all he had, mechanically finishing the crab and settling back to rest.

Kote wondered, lulled by the gentle movement of the water all around him, what would have happened next in the  _ Odyssey _ . 

Odysseus and his men had been trapped with the woman Kalypso when Kote left. It had been one of the more frustrating sections of the story, for him. It had not amused him in the way that their run-in with the cyclops had, or bemused him, as had their interactions with the sirens. 

Nor had it fascinated him, not in the same way he’d been curious about the crew’s trip to the world of the dead. Kote still had difficulties understanding why anyone would willingly go to such a place. But, then, the humans seemed to have a different view of what happened after death, or, perhaps they  _ had  _ in the past.

He knew, at the very least, that Obi-Wan did not believe in the same gods that Odysseus and the others did. He had not spoken of what he thought occurred after death. But then, Kote had intentionally avoided such subjects, as much as possible.

He liked poorly the way Obi-Wan’s eyes looked, when he spoke of death.

Obi-Wan had promised, Kote reminded himself, a knot of worry lodged inside his chest, alongside his heart. Obi-Wan would not break his word. Kote held onto that knowledge as he slipped into troubled dreams, where he approached the vast, deep section of the ocean where his people took their dead.

There were places so deep they could not go. To slip too far into the ocean’s grasp was never to return, they learned that as children. They sent their departed down to those places, to the Goddess’ bosom and embrace, weighed down with their weapons and their death-gifts. Kote had watched his father - Jango - sink down into that darkness, years ago.

In his dreams, his father was there, rising out of the dark, expression stern and implacable. He had been a hard man at times, often grim as the sea before a storm, but fair and warm when he wished to be, when he was with his family. Kote ached at the sight of him, even as Jango swam out of the depths of death itself.

Kote, in the dream, wanted to reach out and pull Jango close, wanted to explain what had happened since his death, wanted--

Jango moved, before he could do anything, offering out a hand and opening his fingers. Kote stared at the little necklace in his palm, knowing the shape of it; he had made it himself, after all, weaving together scraps of Obi-Wan’s sheet and blankets, threading together the shells he’d found in the tidepools, because he’d wanted to give Obi-Wan something after all Obi-Wan had given to him, and--

Kote woke with a start and a sick feeling in his stomach. It was strange. He felt, physically, much better. Sleeping properly stretched out, not cramped in the tub, half out of the water, had relieved so much of the pain and discomfort in his back. And yet…

He wished, with a sharp ache, that he could look over and see Obi-Wan, sleeping fitfully on his bed. He prayed, briefly, that Obi-Wan was not still on the shore. That he had gone back to the cabin, that he’d eaten and slept and--

The dreams followed Kote, through the day. Jango did not appear again, but images of the abyss of the dead haunted him. He realized, with an unpleasant lurch, that he did not know what Obi-Wan’s people  _ did  _ with their dead.

He had seen dead humans before. So many drowned, falling into the water and sinking down, unable to breathe or swim properly. It was not unusual to find bodies, even when Kote was a younger man.

There’d been more bodies, over the past years. Tremendous ships had sunk, full of the drowned. Strange vessels had also plunged into the sea. He knew them to be planes, now; Obi-Wan had explained how they functioned.

All of them contained men turned from living beings into bodies.

Kote’s people had sent many of them to a rest in the abyss. They’d had no better ideas what to do with the bodies. Kote wondered, aching with the thought, about the proper way to treat them. He should have asked, but asking would have put that faraway look in Obi-Wan’s eyes, would have, likely, had him considering turning to foam, and--

And Kote wished, very much, to stop Obi-Wan from thinking such things.

He could not stop himself from considering the dead, especially after he realized where he was, during his second day beneath the waves. He had not ended up as terribly far away from the last battle ground as he feared, and he made his way there.

The ocean had long ago cleared away all evidence of the conflict. The blood had dispersed, probably within hours. The bodies - those not gathered for proper interment - would have been handled by the sea’s scavengers.

Sharks - at the very least - were not picky about what they ate, in Kote’s experience. They would consume bodies, clothing and weapons and all. Kote had not believed that he would find anyone waiting for him at the site of the battle. Too much time had passed. The lines would have moved. They could be fighting on a completely different front. They could have won.

They could have lost.

Kote refused to allow himself to believe that. He shook the thought away.

He knew could spend further months roaming the waters, looking for the army. He could get lucky and find them in hours. Kote preferred not to leave the future so much to chance, if he could help it. He turned from the empty water around the battlefield, and set off towards the land of his people, the heart of Mandalore.

He would find information there, if nothing else. And it was past time for him to go home.

#

Obi-Wan slept only briefly and his mind was full of strange dreams. He woke with Boga curled against his back. She was twitching, just a little, in her sleep, perhaps dreaming of chasing the gulls through the dunes.

He ached in a dozen different places; the floor was cold and hard. But he had slept in worse places, so often. He scrubbed at his face and rose, looking around the small cabin, empty and quiet. Everything put back to the way it had been, before.

He considered, with an unpleasant lurch in his gut, that he was unwell. And no one else had ever seen Cody. Not once. His gut turned over unpleasantly, dire possibilities rising in his head, even as he reached up, gripping at the collar of his shirt, tugging it aside and--

There was a necklace around his throat, but that meant nothing. He could have, perhaps, made it himself, The bites on his shoulders ached, though. They throbbed with hot pain. 

Obi-Wan moved over to the little mirror hanging by the bed and peered into it, ignoring the dark shadows below his eyes and the lines around them. He could see the shape of Cody’s mouth set into his skin; he could, if he took the time, count each individual tooth, where it had slid into flesh.

The scabs were dark, the skin around them tender and red. Obi-Wan pressed against the marks and turned his face towards his shoulder, exhaling in relief. He could not think of a single way he could have put the marks on his own skin. Even a knife, carefully applied, would not have made such injuries.

And he ached in other places, too, down by his hips. There was a tinge, each time he moved, a reminder that they had - had touched one another, tangled together. Cody had fucked him right on the floor of the cabin, had knocked the chair over, had  _ existed _ .

Obi-Wan held onto the truth of it, breath steading out a little as he picked some of the scabs free, blood welling up hot against his skin. Behind him, Boga rolled over with a groan and then rose to her feet, wandering over to bump against his legs.

“Good morning to you, too,” Obi-Wan said, reaching down to scratch behind her ears. “I suppose you want breakfast.”

And it was….not easy, perhaps, but not impossible, to gather up his fishing rods, for Boga’s sake. He went through the motions of the day, habit dragging him along from one task to the next, prompted by Boga when he fell into his head and lingered too long on any one act.

He kept breathing, until the night closed around him, empty and quiet and suffocating.

#

Kote focused on traveling towards the closest of his people’s sprawling cities. They had kept the fighting far from the civilians; at least, they had done so before Kote left. He had no answers, yet, about the state of the war. 

He had no idea about the state of it for days, not until the first tastes of blood in the water came to him. He went still for an instant, the copper tang of blood floating across his gills, burning at the insides of his mouth.

There was not enough blood in the water to be visible; the water remained dark and clear. Kote turned, slowly, knowing the approximate distance from which he could scent blood on the water, spreading his fins, focusing--

Faint vibrations, yet very distant, were translating through the water. Somewhere, there was too much motion, too much movement. And blood. He hesitated no longer, throwing himself forward, towards it, heart racing within his chest as he went.

The taste of blood got thicker as he swam, until he could see it in the water, until the vibrations danced across his skin, until he could hear cries, battle-song, and--

And he found the battle over the side of a drop-off into deeper water. He looked over the battlefield, bright blood obscuring huge swathes of it. Perhaps there’d been a plan for the fight at some point, but if there had been, it had broken down.

It was madness, lines broken by both parties, huge knots of fighting everywhere. Obi-Wan had described the way his people went to war, facing off against one another, attempting to flank. But their struggles were limited by the ground on which they fought.

Kote’s people faced no such limitations. They could attack from below, from above, flank from any direction. Kote gazed across the battlefield and knew not exactly what had happened, but knew that his people were losing.

He wasted not the breath to swear. There was a flash of pale gold from almost directly below him, familiar. Kote ignored the ache of relief - he’d know his brothers anywhere and Rex was down there, was  _ still alive  _ \- and plunged over the side.

Rex had gotten himself separated from everyone else, ensphered by three figures, twisting and spinning through the water, deflecting one spear and driving an elbow back into sensitive gills; Kote could tell it would not be enough.

Kote grabbed a slowly sinking spear as he dove. He cut through the water and seized the long, tangling hair of the third combatant, who had been ready to skewer Rex through the throat. He yanked back and buried the blade of the spear up and into the soft flesh of the man’s lower back, dragging it forwards, spilling more blood into the water.

Kote was already moving, pushing the body away, throwing his shoulder into a second combatant, driving them back from Rex, and for a moment there was nothing but the tangle of their tails and arms, a drag of claws over his side. He had no  _ armor _ .

Kote twisted the blade into flesh, felt the man he held go limp, and shoved him back, turning and--

Someone grabbed his shoulder, jerking hard. Kote adjusted his grip on the borrowed spear and stopped the blade a sliver away from Rex’s chest.

Rex stared at him, eyes gone wide, fins shaking all down his tail, his scales and gills going pale, shock and surprise written over every inch of him. Kote felt heady relief kick at the inside of his ribs, even in the middle of a fight, even not knowing the state of the war, even with the dead, all around.

He had made it back. His people still fought. Rex was alive.

He almost felt like cheering, like singing. His heart raced and his muscles burned, not used to so much exertion, and he said, “I’ve told you before about getting caught on your own.”

Rex made a sharp, trilling sound, scales darkening and fins relaxing, all at once, as he threw himself forward, gripping both of Kote’s shoulders, blurting, “You’re  _ alive _ ? What--? How--? We all thought--”

“Later,” Kote told him, despite the fact that all he wanted to do was hold on just as tightly. “I’ll tell you later. It seems we’re busy.”

Rex still looked stunned, when Kote pushed him back, reaching out and taking another of the weapons floating free in the water around them. 

“Kote,” Rex started, grabbing for his arms again, eyes so wide. “ _ How _ \--?”

Kote flashed him a sharp smile and tugged him forward. Cries went up as they plunged into the fray, as his people caught sight of him. They shouted and sang out, flagging energy apparently forgotten as they pushed forward, until all the world was only movement and blood and the surging, impossible heat of battle.

#

The battle ended with the retreat of the enemy, what was left of them. Kote watched them go, his lungs burning and his entire body a solid throb. He’d taken a few injuries, but not many. Most of the pain was from exerting muscles he had not worked in so long and from the older wounds along his side. 

He worked to keep the discomfort and pain off of his expression in the brief quiet that followed.

There was still too much to do. He could not afford to press a hand to his side, to retreat to a peaceful spot to rest. He’d gotten far too used to someone tending his wounds, to soft, careful hands on his skin, to Obi-Wan’s clear blue eyes, always worried.

Obi-Wan would have bent over him, would have gently cleaned the cut opened over his ribs and pulled the edges together so neatly, pale, long fingers working steadily. He would have--

Kote shook the thoughts away, his throat feeling tight and his gut aching, sharply. He did not think the pain radiating through his chest had anything to do with the minor injuries he’d taken or the exhaustion spreading through his bones. He hurt, sharp and aching, and knew it was because he had left his heart somewhere else, somewhere far away.

Obi-Wan must have been caring for it, still, because Kote yet lived, could yet breathe, and turn to face the eager, confused,  _ hopeful  _ faces of his people, drawing closer with the end of the fight. Some reached out and touched him, their eyes stunned. They snapped to obey when he ordered them to clear the water of the dead, to set a camp, and to post guards.

Kote watched them work for a moment, trying not to look as though he were catching his breath, and then Rex was there, grabbing him by both shoulders and just looking at him. Kote returned the attention; Rex had a few new scars across his skin, but he was alive and whole. Kote asked, “Did you manage alright, while I was gone?”

And Rex made a sharp sound, pulling him closer again, both arms around him, face pressed to Kote’s shoulder. 

“You were  _ dead _ ,” Rex gritted out against his skin, voice cracking and breaking, a shaking in his arms. “You’ve  _ been dead _ , Kote, we didn’t even have a body, how--”

“I didn’t die,” Kote said, and sighed. “Come, I’ll tell you, but not here.”

He felt Rex’s thrumming attention as they moved away from the heart of the battlefield. The water was carrying the blood out. It would attract sharks; only the crowd and the thrashing movement had kept them away thus far. They’d long ago learned to avoid active battlefields on some level.

At least, the sharks not controlled by the attacking riders had learned such caution. The shark-riders’ beasts showed no such concern. They would charge in, leaving shredded bodies in their wake. 

Even untrained sharks would come in, after the fighting ended, just as the birds that Obi-Wan talked about, looking to feed on the dead or those too weak to fight them off. If they were very unlucky, larger predators would be attracted as well. 

Kote tucked in against the plunging cliff that dropped into the depths, putting stone at his back and looking out across the water, at those moving to minister to the dead or dying. It was such a relief to see his people again, after so long away, so good to be with them, but…. But he wished his first breath among them had not tasted of blood, had not come with so much death.

“Kote,” Rex said, after a moment, his voice strained, and it was so strange to hear his name spoken that way again, after so long growing familiar with Obi-Wan’s voice, the way he shaped it. Obi-Wan’s accent softened the sounds of his name, tinged them with warmth. He’d never had a - a shortened version of his name, not like some of his brothers, like Rex and Kix. He’d only been Kote, his entire life. Except with Obi-Wan.

He would have given much to hear Obi-Wan calling him  _ Cody  _ again, in that moment. But there was only Rex, demanding, “ _ What happened _ ?”

Kote looked over at him, at the lines of strain around Rex’s eyes and the smear of something dark through his pale hair. Kote said, honestly, “I’ve missed you.”

“ _ Kote-- _ ”

“I was bitten,” Kote said, because winding Rex up had long ago become a habit, but there was a limit to it, a point at which it was no longer teasing. The sharp downward twist of Rex’s mouth implied that maybe that point had already come and gone. Kote motioned to his side, to the fresh scars there, and Rex nodded.

“How did you survive it?” Rex asked, tension in his jaw, in the half-rise of the fins down his tail. “A wound like that....” They both knew that such bites were a death sentence, almost always. Kote could not, in fact, think of anyone who had survived a similar attack. They’d lost too many of their people to the shark-riders.

Too many of his brothers.

One would have been too many, but the riders had taken both Crys and Bly, already, and Kote  _ did not know  _ if more had been lost. 

“I…” Kote shifted, brushed a hand across the stitches still remaining in some of the deeper wounds, the ones that ached. “I washed ashore,” he said, and Rex stiffened, hissed in the back of his throat, the scales at his throat paling almost to grey. They were all taught, as early as possible, to avoid the shore. Beaching was dangerous, not just for one person, but for everyone who might go to help.

Kote drew in a breath, knowing perfectly well that Rex would take no better to the rest of the story. He was prepared for it when Rex jerked back, physically, as he said, “And a human found me.”

“How did you get away?” Rex demanded, tail jerking fitfully. He reached back out, holding onto Kote’s arms as he looked Kote over, apparently for yet unseen injuries. “What did they do to you? What--”

“He helped me,” Kote said, and Rex snapped his head up to meet Kote’s gaze, eyes wide, the whites showing all the way around. “He kept me alive and healed me.”  _ He cared for me _ , Kote did not add,  _ without complaint. He fed me, kept me in the water, and bodily carried me, though I know the weight hurt him, every time. He called me Cody. He fell in love with me _ .

“That’s not possible,” Rex said, with a sharp shake of his head. “You were delusional, you--”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Kote cut in, too tired and relieved to see Rex, still, to get much snap into the words.

For a moment, they only floated beside one another, and then Rex said, quietly, “A human, really?”

“Yes.” Kote smiled, memories flitting through his head, the fall of Obi-Wan’s bright hair against his cheek, the way he looked, soft and dazed, after Kote touched him, the gentleness of his smile, such a rare thing. He caught the way Rex was looking at him - worry and confusion written all over Rex’s expression - and said, “His name is Obi-Wan.”

Rex’s scales paled further. He leaned closer and hissed, spines just barely rising across his shoulders in agitation, “ _ He’s still alive _ ?”

“And going to stay that way,” Kote said, because Obi-Wan had promised, and Kote knew him to be a man of his word. He would be alive when Kote got back. And then they would...figure everything out. 

Kote had only the briefest outline of a plan, at the moment. He did not know exactly how they could manage to be together, not with the responsibilities pulling at him for his people. But they would find a way. They would have to.

He could not imagine or accept the alternative.

“ _ Kote _ ,” Rex snapped, grabbing his arm, even as several other people swam up, lieutenants that Kote recognized with a sweep of relief. 

“Later,” Kote said, pulling away from Rex’s grip. There were other things to worry about, things beyond the explanation for his recovery and the fact that he had, quite thoroughly, broken tradition in every way it could have been broken during his time with Obi-Wan.

That could wait, until after they had discussed the battle, what he had missed, and what they must do next.

#

It took hours to work through everything that had happened while Kote was gone, the first evening after the battle. The distraction his very presence engendered did not help with matters. Everyone, it seemed, had fully accepted that he had died. They had seen no alternative, when he did not return for so long a time.

Another sharp jag passed through Kote’s ribs at the thought, but he had expected no less, really. What else would they think, when he disappeared off of a battlefield? When he remained gone for months? 

The dead went missing. They could not all be accounted for. 

He felt the stares, as Rex and the others brought him up to date on all he had missed. They’d maintained the uncomfortable almost-stalemate they’d established before he left. The lines of battle shifted, back and forth, with both sides losing people.

Kote frowned, considering territory lost and territory gained and feeling the slow throb of a headache building at the back of his head. He listened to word of battles along so large a stretch of their borders -  _ inside  _ of their borders, sometimes - and his stomach grew harder. Rex had done an impressive job in his absence, but he’d always known that, of all his brothers, Rex had the sharpest mind for military strategy.

Rex waited until the others had left, all their words spent, before saying, his eyes downturned, “There’s more.”

Kote tensed, though there was no blow to brace for. He said, “Tell me.”

“Tensions in Sundari are high,” Rex said, dragging a hand back over his head, and talk of the capital made Kote’s jaw tense. It had been an age since he’d been back to Sundari. Even before his injury, he’d been on the front for so long. “After you were...thought dead… there’s been much talk about suing for peace.”

Kote made a sharp sound. “The shark-riders don’t want peace.” He didn’t rightly know what they wanted. They had made no demands. Refused all attempts at communication. They just swept forward, waging their terrible war. Perhaps they wanted territory, or some resource Kote knew nothing about. It was certainly possible.

But as far as he could tell, they wanted only to kill his people. He could still recall the masked rider who he had fought, in the battle that left him close to dead. He’d never seen the man’s eyes or his face; he wore bones over all of his skin and he carried a long, thick spear.

The man had been at every battle Kote fought, usually well back of the fighting, leading the song for the shark-riders. Kote was not sure they had a leader, but if they did, he thought it must be that man.

He wished he’d killed the bastard.

Rex grimaced, looking to the side. He said, “I know they don’t. But it’s harder to make everyone else understand. It might be…” He shifted, fins twitching, “Partially my fault. I’ve avoided going back. It’s why…” He shrugged, still looking to the side.

“Why you’re not technically King, yet?” Kote asked, mouth quirking with faint amusement. 

“That’s  _ your  _ job,” Rex said, cutting him a look, bumping his tail against Kote’s. “You’re going to have to fake your death much longer to get out of it.”

“I didn’t fake anything,” Kote said, looking out across the war camp, feeling exhausted in a way he’d forgotten. He’d been tired and hurt for most of the time he’d known Obi-Wan, but this weighty exhaustion had not dragged at him as much. And when it had--

He shook the thoughts away. “I’ll have to return, then. See to the issues in Sundari,” he said, not liking the idea even as he spoke it into being.

Rex hummed agreement beside him. “No one will believe, if you don’t.” 

Kote closed his eyes, just for a moment. “Very well,” he said. “I see little reason to delay. What do we have for transport?”

Rex looked to the side, abruptly, a muscle jumping in his jaw, and Kote felt a kernel of cold spread out through his gut. “What?” he asked, dreading the answer even as he waited for it.

“We have - we’re sending some of the injured back. At least part of the way,” Rex said, and Kote nodded. That was not unusual. There were always convoys moving back and forth from the lines, bringing food and supplies out, sending the wounded and dead home. A terrible exchange.

“Fine, I’ll--”

“Wolv is among them,” Rex said, blurting the words all at once, and the cold in Kote’s gut hardened to ice. 

He could say nothing, not for a moment. When he spoke, his voice came from far away, “Is he--”

“Alive,” Rex said, scrubbing at his face. “But. The - the shark-riders had him. For a time.” 

Another of his brothers, hurt in this vicious, bloody conflict. Because he was not where he should have been. Kote looked to the side, tasting something sour in his mouth. He asked, hoarse, “What happened?”

Rex shook his head, jaw twitching. “We don’t know, exactly. He said a woman had him. That she wanted….information.” Kote flexed his fingers, feeling an itch all across his knuckles. Rex went on, ragged, “He says he didn’t tell her anything.”

Kote had to close his eyes, just for a moment. He said, thick, “Take me to him.”

#

Kote had never liked spending time among the injured. Obi-Wan was good at tending to hurts. Kote knew well enough he’d never had the same skill. His hands were too rough. But he’d gotten better at it, during his time on land.

He’d had to. There was no one else to take care of Obi-Wan. Sho’cye knew he wouldn’t take care of himself.

Kote hoped there’d been no more storms. He hoped Obi-Wan had stayed out of his head, out of the past. Kote set those hopes aside, following Rex to the area set aside for the injured, where everyone was busy preparing to move out.

So many were hurt, missing pieces--limbs, in so many cases. The shark-riders did so much damage, even to people who survived their attacks. Kote felt his side ache as they swam past, memories of the sharp slide of teeth into his body crawling into this head. 

His memories scattered, like minnows in the presence of a barracuda, when he finally spotted Wolv.

He almost did not recognize his brother. There were bandages swaddled around half of his face, dark green. The skin below was almost gray, livid with black bruises. Kote could see stitch-work beneath, here and there, and hissed, looking over the rest of Wolv’s body, taking in one injury after another, and--

He stopped, unable to progress forward as he absorbed the damage. Wolv was up and about, technically, but he was not doing anything, just….floating, injured arm held close to his chest. “Fuck,” Kote bit out, because the profanity felt appropriate. 

He noticed Rex glancing at him, but he’d already moved forward by then, needing a closer look, needing to put hands on Wolv, to make sure he was solid and there, that his injuries were not fatal. 

Wolv reacted slowly to Kote’s appearance in his line of sight, to a touch on his shoulder, careful around all the injuries. He blinked, his eye dark and flat, with bruised circles below and around it. Kote opened his mouth, closed it again, and finally swore, running a hand down the side of Wolv’s head, taking in the damage, horror building into outrage--

“Kote?” Wolv rasped out - his voice sounded shredded, as though he’d spent a long time screaming - and he blinked. He reached out, haltingly, with his good arm, bumping his fingers against Kote’s shoulder. He asked, gaze not quite focused. “Am I finally dead, then?”

Kote bit back the sound in his throat, and carefully shifted forward, enough to curl his arms carefully around Wolv’s battered body, to hold him. “No,” he said, their temples pressed together, “neither of us are dead. And I am taking you home.”

He felt Wolv tremble, a shaking starting in his limbs. Wolv was still, for a beat, and then his good arm curled around Kote’s back, tightly. Wolv rasped, “You’re not dead?”

“I’m not dead,” Kote confirmed, eyes squeezed shut, hating the doubting wonder in Wolv’s voice. “I’m--”

“I’m sorry,” Wolv cut in, blurted, ragged. “I’m sorry, I never saw them coming, I never--”

Kote hummed, in the back of his throat, hearing Rex join in a moment later. Rex rested a hand on his shoulder, pushing closer to them both there amongst all the injured. And it was not the homecoming Kote had hoped for, but it was not as bad as the one he had worried he was going to get.

“I’m back, now,” he said, tightening his grip on both his brothers. “I’m sorry I was gone for so long.”

#

Traveling with the injured would take longer than continuing on his own, and Kote knew it. But he could not make himself race on ahead. He was needed, anyway. Some of the injured required help to move. Not all of them could swim on their own. Wolv barely could and would not make good time. 

Rex held Kote, before their caravan could set off. “I will watch the lines, until you return,” Rex promised, gripping too tight, as though dreading to let go.

“I know,” Kote told him, though he knew neither Rex nor the others had liked his orders to draw back, to take a defensive position and to stop excursions out into the territory they’d lost already. They’d follow the orders, whether they liked them or not.

“Say hello to mother for me,” Rex said, ragged, finally pulling away, and Kote squeezed his arm. Rex turned and left with a sweep of his tail. Kote watched until Rex disappeared into nothing but a spot, and then sighed.

Wolv was waiting for him, off to one side, still with that strange, distant look on his expression. There was a familiarity to it that made Kote’s stomach clench tighter. “Alright,” he said, putting a hand on Wolv’s uninjured arm. “Let’s take you home.”

They made such small progress through the day, for progress required them to tend to the injured. It was strange, how Kote had a sense of familiarity with the entire process.

He comforted the injured, as best he could, and thought of Obi-Wan, sitting blank-eyed on a chair in his cabin, seemingly unaware that he was bleeding, that he had hurt himself again, somehow, and--

Kote pushed those thoughts aside. He could only hope that Obi-Wan was alright. He could only trust that Obi-Wan would keep his word. He kept his thoughts busy with their slow progress towards the capital, itching with frustration when they stopped to sleep, still so far away from home.

Still, it had been…. A very long day. He lay himself down in the stillness and closed his eyes. Exhaustion came for him quickly, despite the thrumming hum of his thoughts. He wished he could look over at Obi-Wan, he’d grown so used to checking on him every night, before they slept, but…

He was woken only a scant few hours later, by fast, urgent sounds beside him and a sudden sharp cry. He had gotten very used to being woken by Obi-Wan’s nightmares. For a lurching, confused moment, he thought he was back in the cabin.

It took only a second to realize that it was the ocean stretched all around him, that he could breathe properly, and that it was Wolv crying out, instead of Obi-Wan. Kote shook away the last vestiges of sleep, reaching cautiously for Wolv’s shoulder.

Wolv jerked awake at his touch, eye snapping open, hand coming up to grip at Kote’s arm. “It’s alright,” Kote murmured, quietly. There were others, stirring around them, disturbed by the noise. “You’re alright, you’re safe, now.”

Wolv made a ragged sound, flinching, and Kote did not try to hold him, only stayed close and said, after a moment, “You can tell me, you know. What happened.”

Wolv shook his head, sharp, still looking away, and said, “No. I can’t.”

Kote stared at the line of his shoulders, the way they curved down, and a knife twisted inside his ribs. He should have been there, when Wolv was taken. Should have been there to find him. But he’d been injured himself, slowly being patched back together….

Kote frowned and put a hand on Wolv’s back, relieved when Wolv did not flinch away, when he, after a moment, slumped sideways into Kote. They did not speak further, as Kote slid a hand down Wolv’s arm, thumb brushing back and forth across Wolv’s wrist, the little touch that had kept Obi-Wan from slipping into the horrors of his thoughts, more than once.

Someone had carved into his brother. Taken an eye. Taken, perhaps, more than that, while Kote had been falling in love. He had been kissing Obi-Wan, touching him, experiencing a sweeter pleasure than any he’d ever known and--

Kote knew, logically, that he could not have gotten back sooner. The throbbing pain in his body kept reminding him of that. In all likelihood, he had left  _ too soon _ . But…

But he could not have stayed away any longer. And he could not do away completely with the sour guilt in the back of his throat as he pressed his temple to Wolv’s and held him, until Wolv fell asleep once more.

#

The ocean stretched endless before Obi-Wan each morning as he went down to the shore to fish. He barely watched the breakers, anymore. His gaze was always drawn out to the still water beyond, the rolling waves that moved across the surface of the deeper water. His eyes traced the horizon, looking for something - anything - breaking the surface.

Sometimes, he saw the rise and fall of porpoises, moving out closer to the horizon, no doubt hunting for fish, just as he was. Their bodies were dark grey and smooth, sliding above the waves and then beneath again. There was no sign of gold on them, and yet, each time they breached, a part of him ached with hope.

Days sped away - Obi-Wan bothered little to track them - and he watched the porpoises, swimming around in his little cove before moving onwards. He wondered, sometimes, if he could simply not see any sign of Cody because he was not far enough out.

Boga grew agitated, the first time Obi-Wan pulled his shirt off, folding it neatly beside his fishing poles. He shoved his slacks down his legs, not wanting them to get completely soaked, and wading out into the waves, which curled, cold as ice, around his ankles and calves.

Boga refused, still, to come down to the water. She whined, further up the shore.

Obi-Wan had not gone out into the water on his own. Not ever. The ocean was cold and forbidding, it had always seemed to him. But there was a beauty to it, as well, for it contained Cody and his people. And Obi-Wan remembered the weightless feeling of being out in the waves, the feeling of Cody’s hands on him, steadying and perfect.

He pushed out past the breakers, cold water curling up to his chest, breaking him out in goosebumps, the sun only making the first daring efforts to rise over the horizon. The water was dark and near flat, stretching to infinity. 

Obi-Wan shivered, feeling the sand give under his feet, feeling the water tug him from shore and push him back towards it as the waves moved around him. He’d never been much of a swimmer. He barely knew the basics. And Cody was...long gone.

Obi-Wan reached up, pressing at the bite marks on his shoulders. They were still healing. He knew the delay was largely because he would not stop picking at them. But they were there, proof that Cody  _ had  _ existed, had held him up in the surf, had helped him back to shore and fucked him on the beach--

Obi-Wan pushed up into the water, uncertainly kicking his legs, his arms more a flail than anything else. He swam - or did something close to swimming, anyway - out towards where he saw the porpoises some mornings. The salt water stung in his eyes and figuring out how to breathe seemed a losing battle. But the movement kept him warmer, at least.

He swam, feeling the water dragging him back and forth, until his arms and legs burned with the effort and his breathing had grown ragged. He took a moment to rest, then, moving his arms and legs with no idea how deep the water went beneath him. 

The sky was all purple and pink overhead, bruised. The ocean stretched out in all directions. He spat the taste of salt from his mouth, water running down from his hair. He bobbed in the water, shivering and exhausted.

He stared at the horizon and considered how far out he might be able to go before his strength failed completely. He’d been told, before the war, that drowning was peaceful. He wasn’t sure, anymore, that there was such a thing as a peaceful death. He gasped at the air, the cold water curled so close around him, the horizon temptingly close.

There would be nothing beyond it, he knew. It called to him.

It offered quiet and peace and nothingness, the end of the story he’d always seen looming on the horizon.

But he’d promised Cody that he would be on that beach, someday, if Cody came back. He’d promised. Given his word. And, anyway, Boga needed looking after.

Obi-Wan took a breath and turned, looking back at the shore, at Boga dancing between his fishing poles, back and forth, back and forth. It felt harder to make his way back. The ocean seemed intent on dragging him outwards and to the south, as well, further down the beach, towards the great rocks that broke the surface.

Obi-Wan fought against it, kicking and beating at the surface with his arms, heart racing until he managed to reach a place where he could stand. He waded, shaking, out through the crashing waves, dripping wet and freezing cold.

Boga knocked into him, and he sank to one knee to pet her, resting there until he got his breath back. The following morning, when they went down to the shore, he brought a towel along, Boga fussing endlessly as he walked back out into the sea and swam as far out as he thought he could go and then a little further.

#

It took impossibly long to reach Sundari. On the one hand, Kote could not help but feeling grateful that the fighting was still so very far away. On the other… the time spent in travel felt nothing but frustrating. It was a delay he would have wished to avoid, if at all possible.

Still. The ache in his side grew worse as they travelled, even at their slow speed. He assisted with moving some of the injured, ignoring the strain, until one of the healers refused to accept the assistance any further, ruling that Kote was not fully recovered, himself.

Wolv’s nightmares continued to wake them both through the nights. Kote asked after them, and Wolv made a harsh sound, one night, snapping, “Why don’t you tell me what happened to you, instead?”

And so Kote told him, quietly, what he recalled of the attack by the shark. He spoke of the man in bone armor with his spear, and got confirmation from Wolv that the man continued to appear on different fields of battle, leading the song. Kote spoke, carefully, of waking up in Obi-Wan’s care, and felt Wolv go still as he listened.

It took multiple nights to get out the entirety of the tale, even leaving out much. Wolv seemed no more willing to discuss what had happened to him by the time Kote finished. He let the subject rest, relieved, at least, that Wolv’s physical wounds were healing.

They stopped in towns along the way, breaking up their conversations and the long journey; there was really no way to avoid such visits, not with the injured brought along. 

Besides, the people in the smaller towns were his people, too, and laying in the path of the enemy forces, if Rex were to lose the line. Kote grew used, over the days that followed, to exclamations over his alleged return from the dead, to flustered celebrations, and knew that news must be spreading ahead of him.

It was, therefore, not much of a surprise to reach Sundari to find celebrations already in order. 

Kote sighed as they approached the great caverns below, where the city of Sundari lay nestled. They tucked all but their barest outposts into such caverns, for the protection they offered.

The sea raged and shifted, even so far from the surface. Storms up above impacted their world; the walls of the extensive cavern system protected them from the worst of the Goddess’ ire. In the past, such things had also protected them from the attacks of others.

Currently, half the city seemed to be out in the open water, lined up, rank after rank of them. 

Kote looked for familiar forms, feeling Wolv at his shoulder doing the same. It was not hard to catch sight of orange and gold. Especially because Kix had, evidently, struck out for them, his hair still worn long and braided back in the style so many of the healers favored, concern written over his expression already.

Eyayah - second-youngest of his brothers - was only a body-length behind him and gaining, longer than he’d been when Kote saw him last. Kote looked past them for Boba, but saw no sign of his youngest brother. He was still of the age to stay with their mother, though, safe in the palace, waiting for those returned from war as was proper and traditional.

Sweet relief uncurled through Kote’s chest at the sight of them and the city beyond. His people had survived his absence. His family had mostly made it through. They had survived and so had he. He’d made it home, however unlikely that had seemed, near death in Obi-Wan’s tub when he first woke up. 

He smiled as Kix reached them, immediately reaching for Wolv, looking him over and shouting something impossible to hear over the singing. Based on the greenish light around his throat, he was displeased with the state of Wolv’s health. Eyayah reached them only seconds later, slamming into Kote, his voice a vibration that went unheard.

Kote held him, reaching to grab Kix, pulling him close for just a moment, looking out across the gathered masses, the call of  _ home  _ ringing inside his chest even as guards moved to flank him. Music shook through the water, singing and the great ringing vibrations from the drums built around the caverns. 

Half of the enjoyment of music came from the vibrations of it. Kote had missed them, deeply, while above water, where there was only sound, which seemed sharp-edged and too loud without the water to modulate it.

Still, Obi-Wan had always seemed to enjoy his singing. It had, Kote considered, as he moved forward, towards the waiting crowds - Eyayah hanging off of his shoulders, shouting something unintelligible into his ear - settled him. Soothed him. Obi-Wan had told Kote that sirens could call sailors down to their deaths and then seemed to never put together that Kote could…

Impact him in a similar, if not the same, way.

Kote had felt guilty about it, at first, the way his voice could make Obi-Wan grow still, settle down, eyes falling half-shut. But the alternative had been watching him fall into his head, into the nightmares that cut into him, so harshly. Kote had not been able to sit and watch that happen, not when there had been something he could do.

He shook those thoughts aside, because they would lead, only, to considerations of how Obi-Wan was managing without him. Kote had traveled far from that little piece of the world out of water. He had no way of knowing if the storms continued.

His gut said they did.

The thoughts ate at him, and then he was among his people, joining their song as was only right. He knew the words, and there were lines designed specifically for him; or for people in his situation, anyway. The people sang him welcome and sang him home, filling the entirety of the world.

The trip through the city was a blur, afterwards, barely remembered. His people filled the city, swimming and jostling to get better positions. Beyond them, the cavern opened up, near-dark, lit only by spots of the faintly glowing algaes his people cultivated for such a purpose.

The dark did not bother Kote - it did not bother any of them - he lived far from the sun’s blinding light. He still remembered the first time he had seen it, truly, racing up to the surface with Rex trailing behind, the water’s surface catching the light and diffusing it into brilliant red-gold, turning the world into something magic, kissed by the sun.

Waking up in Obi-Wan’s care had not felt like coming home. 

It had felt like approaching the surface that first time, not least because Obi-Wan glowed, too, with his red-tinged hair and pale skin and clear, blue eyes.

Kote looked across his city, and felt, beneath the relief curling out through his chest, an underlying ache. It remained as he took in the massive buildings they’d constructed over the years, some of them carved from stone, some carefully grown from corals, patterns and colors stretching everywhere.

Moving through the city felt half a dream, one of the many that he’d had, during his recovery. He moved through spaces so well known, past the near-emptied barracks, over the market district, the terraces where craftsfolk did their work, and, finally, to the palace, still surrounded by deafening sound.

The singing continued, even as he swam down into the massive, sprawling structure, the walls as shined as the finest shell, pearlescent, spirals rising and curving through the water, up towards the ceiling of the cavern, so far above.

Most of the injured fell away, hurried off to receive better care, to rest and begin their recovery. Only Wolv stayed with Kote, moving into the palace proper, greeted every other moment by someone else. Kote kept a hand on Wolv until Kix shouted something and tugged him off. Kote watched them go, until Eyayah pulled him along.

Eyayah dragged him, finally, into an open chamber, the center of the room full of a finely carved statue that extended down from the ceiling. Kote wondered, tired and full of thrumming relief at returning home, if Obi-Wan would find it beautiful.

And then there was a sharp whistle from behind him, and he turned, a smile breaking across his expression.

“Mother,” he said, staring at her, at the greying spread of her hair through the water behind her - it was threaded through with shells and stones, shining and glimmering, lovely - at her dark eyes and the shocked relief etched across her expression. There was movement behind her: Boba, finally, rushing forward and drawing to an abrupt, shocked, stop. “It’s good to see you.”

She made a wild sound, crossing the distance between them with a single snap of her orange tail, and then she had her arms around him, holding tight, saying, in the quiet inside the palace, where Kote could hear himself thinking, once more, “I knew you were alive, I knew it! I never believed you had died.”

He knew his mother well enough to hear the lie in the words and to hear, also, the tremendous relief that she had been wrong. He curled an arm around her, only for her to push back, to look him up and down, to hiss, as her gaze landed on the fresh scars all down his side, “What happened to you?”

Kote flashed her a smile. He said, “I think we both have a lot of news to share.” He lifted his gaze to the others crowding into the space around them, to Boba and Eyayah, servants, council members, and guards, all the curious and the confused and the lost. “And I think you are not the only one with questions.”

#

Obi-Wan took to sitting on the beach after his swims in the morning, catching fish until they stopped biting. He felt no great hurry to get back to the cabin; some mornings he built a fire along the shore and cooked some of the fish over the flames, feeding both himself and Boga, staying longer to stare out across the water.

He disliked being in the cabin; not least because it was so easy to forget that Cody wasn’t there anymore. He’d turn, planning to brush a kiss across Cody’s brow, only to remember he was gone.

And so he spent much of his time down by the shore, watching the water. 

He knew, logically, that it was very possible Cody would never return. He could change his mind, once back among his people. Even if he did not, he was a King. He had duties, surely they could not so easily be pushed aside to make time for one man.

Besides, he had gone to fight a war.

Obi-Wan knew too well how few people returned, when they went to make war. 

He’d watched the men around him writing letters, to the people who were waiting for them back at home. He’d helped, sometimes, setting aside a tin of food or pausing in the process of cleaning his 45 - the M1911 he’d been issued at the start of the war, that he’d kept, that stayed, mostly, under his pillow - to dictate poetry to men who wanted to send something special to a sweetheart or their wives. Some of his men, who had never learned to write well, had asked him to handle the actual writing, sitting beside him and stumbling through what they wanted to say….

The entire process had been agonizing, and Obi-Wan had only watched it from the outside. He’d had no one to write letters to, no one to beg for any kind of comfort and connection across continents and oceans. He’d considered, at various times, writing such a missive to Satine, but she had been always out of reach.

And he had outlived her, anyway.

He’d been there to watch when the men got letters back, as well. He’d seen the way they read them, over and over again, folding the notes so many times that the paper started to fall apart. And, at the time, he’d assumed that the people back home, the people writing the notes, must surely not treasure the missives they got in return the same way.

He sat on the sand, arms curled around his legs, and wished he’d had any word at all from Cody.

He wished he knew what was going on, wished he knew that Cody was alright, well and unhurt. Alive.

All those people waiting at home would have at least been told if their loved one perished. They would have received a letter, at the minimum. One last piece of postage, informing them of the loss of the man they loved, the man they’d waited for--

Obi-Wan’s breath got ragged. He turned his face to the side, resting his cheek against his knee. He’d never know if Cody fell in battle. There would be no neat, impersonal letter waiting for him. He would just...go on, none the wiser.

The thought drove him to his feet; he absently shushed Boga, who whined at him and bumped her huge head against his hip. 

Anything could happen, down below the water, and he would never know about any of it. Cody could fall in battle. He could survive and go back to his throne, gradually forgetting the period he’d spent out of the water, until Obi-Wan was little more than a vague dream, a memory of an event better forgotten.

And Obi-Wan would never know, one way or the other.

He rubbed at the back of his neck, pacing back and forth across the sand. Boga followed by his side, brushing against his leg with each step, until he dropped a hand and rubbed at her broad head. 

He was, he considered, scratching behind her ear, waiting for word that was never going to come, no matter what. He knew it, deep in his chest, with a terrible and aching certainty. But he’d given his word.

And he’d never broken a promise, not willingly, no matter how pointless he knew it would be.

He glanced back out towards the sea, his eyes burning, and shivered. It took time to be able to breathe deeply again, to edge away from the panting, gasping struggle to fill his lungs. 

Eventually, as the sun set, he let Boga lead him back to the cabin, through the tattered rituals of making supper for them both. He ate a few bites and then pushed the food away. Boga bumped into him, when he put a hand over his mouth, shoulders curling down, vision going blurry as his eyes burned. She ended up hitting the table proper, knocking his cup over and almost spilling the water onto the notebook he’d kept, filling with notes about Mando’a, Cody, and--

Obi-Wan swore, a rasp of sound, grabbing for the nearest towel to mop at the mess. He lifted the book away and checked the pages, relieved to find them dry, though he knew not why it mattered. All his work on the language meant  _ nothing _ .

He’d not have a reason to speak it again.

He barked a laugh, sinking back into the chair. He dragged a fingertip over his writing, memories digging into his heart as he looked over notes on grammar, syntax, and--

Curling his fingers around a pencil felt natural. It ever had. He turned to a new page, towards the back of the book, and stared at it. He’d not taught Cody to read English, but he wrote a greeting, anyway, thinking about all the families at home during the war, writing desperate missives, so many of them addressed to dead men.

He thought about all the letters he’d watched written on the front. Letters written and sent  _ from  _ dead men. Obi-Wan shuddered, but his hand was steady as he twisted the pencil.

_ Please know that I loved you _ , he wrote,  _ I should have told you, once more. I hope when you read this _ \--

The words smeared, drops of water landing on them, and he swore again, wiping a hand across the page. He tore it from the notebook, the unfinished letter, and balled it up, moving to kneel in front of his oven. He shoved the letter into the fire burning inside the belly of his stove, though it was little more than embers.

He watched the paper’s edges curl and burn, glowing red and fading to black, until there was nothing else to see, and then he pushed back away from it, panting raggedly, and waited for morning, if it would come.


	2. Chapter Two

Kote had never enjoyed spending time in the great council chamber. He knew very well it was occasionally - frequently - necessary. He even recognized that the space itself was beautiful. The chamber was almost completely round, a natural formation left behind from one of the tremendous eruptions that had shaped the region in his great-grandfather’s time. 

They’d carved the inside of the chamber with intricate patterns, long ago, and glowing algae had grown through the patterns; the history of his people, written directly into the spaces where they made their laws and their decisions.

So, yes, the council chamber was a lovely place and so heavy with history and purpose that sometimes it felt like it was exerting physical pressure against Kote’s skin, moving right through the water. But he’d never been in the room for anything but an argument; his mother told him that was because all decisions worth making would be opposed by someone.

His father had said it was simply because all the council members were bloody minded idiots.

Kote privately believed they could both be right at the same time. 

Still, they’d always had a council. Technically, the members of the council were there to advise him, to assist with the decisions made for their people. He did not loathe them all, the way his father had done, by the end. But, then, he had not had much time to spend around them.

He waited for the entirety of the council to arrive, settling into place around the room, before speaking. They came murmuring and staring, and he allowed it without comment, feeling the attention given to the healing wounds on his side. Rumors would spread, he knew, no matter what he said in the chamber. He could only hope to mitigate them, to keep the focus on the war.

It was not so simple as that, of course. He tried to dive directly into what had happened while he’d been gone, but they seemed fixated on discovering where he’d been, what he had been doing. He flared out his fins and then reigned his irritation in, and said, “Very well, what information will sate your curiosity, then?”

The murmurs around the chamber fell quiet for a moment, before Utrea - a council member so ancient she could have been his grandmother - eased forward. She said, her voice even, “You were gone for months, my Lord. We can see the why of it--” she gestured towards his side “--but the how of your survival is, understandably, an intriguing mystery. We have received rumors, from outlying territories, but we all know the value of rumor. Tell us, we request, what  _ happened _ ?”

And there were lies he could have spoken. He’d considered them, even, on his trip to the capital, while caring for Wolv. They would not like, at all, what he had to tell them. But lying about Obi-Wan would serve no purpose.

Kote had no intention of setting Obi-Wan aside. He  _ would  _ go back. Which meant that attempting to hide what had happened would only delay the inevitable. Besides, such lies were not in his nature. So he straightened his shoulders, explained how he had been found and cared for, and watched the shock and horror spread across their expressions.

It was not much of a surprise, really, when Thrull pushed to the front of the crowd, his expression dark and his eyes grim, hair paled to gray. He had been of an age with Jango, but was built longer and leaner. He’d never much cared for Kote; the feeling was, very much, mutual. Thrull had been a warrior, once. He had, perhaps, been good at it. At least, his skills had ensured that he had a hand in Kote’s training with blade and spear.

Kote had scars, still, from some of his  _ lessons _ .

He did not know if the cruelty had been focused simply on him, or if Thrull would have enjoyed hurting someone else, just as much, but he had suspicions.

Thrull scowled over when he snapped, “You allowed a human to hold you captive?”

“No,” Kote said, frowning back. “I healed while he tended me until I was well enough to return to the water.” 

Thrull flicked his tail, fins rising, right on the edge of an inappropriate display of aggression. He stopped just sort of flaring them fully, landing on intimidation, instead of an open threat. He said, “And you left this human  _ alive _ ?”

There were murmurs through the chamber, concern and unhappiness. Even his mother, close-by, looked worried, her scales paled and her mouth pressed thinner. Kote kept his fins relaxed through an effort of will; it would not do to legitimize Thrull’s temper, to give any sign that his actions were even worthy of being thought a threat. 

“Would you kill the person who tended your wounds - who brought you from the edge of death?” Kote asked, tilting his head to the side, gills flaring, just a little. Irritation was allowed, after all, especially in the face of such a ridiculous suggestion. 

Thrull scowled at him. “There are codes--”

“And they do not take precedence over common sense or honor,” Kote cut in, cold and sharp. “Would you - any of you - cut down an innocent man after he cared for you for months? And then claim that you had done the right thing?”

There were hums and clicks through the room; no one liked what he was saying, very much, but they could not argue with him. Except, perhaps, Thrull, who could - and would - argue with anyone. He twitched his tail again and said, “Humans are not to know of us. It’s too dangerous. They are barbarous creatures, and there are laws--”

“Laws change,” Kote said. He had many  _ to  _ change, to build Obi-Wan a place in his life. He felt an itch under his skin as the spines along his arms and shoulders tried to rise. Once, they would have been out already. Once, he would have flared his fins, impatient to prove a point.

But the long stretch of time in the tub had taught him patience, if nothing else. He’d learned how to restrain his initial reaction to a situation; been forced to learn. Thrull scowled at him, the edges of  _ his  _ spines rising as he said, flat and hard, “Your father would have never allowed such behavior to stand.”

Kote tensed, jaw itching. He knew, perfectly well, that Thrull had never agreed with anything his father wanted to do, either. He disagreed for the sake of disagreement, or because it was the only way to express his displeasure that he had not been born a king. Kote could not restrain a twitch of his tail; his control of his temper had not grown  _ that _ fine.

Still, he could not argue the point. Jango would - likely - not have approved. Kote fought for calm, anyway, keeping his lips from stretching away from his teeth. He did not look away from Thrull’s furious eyes as he said, “Obi-Wan lives. And will continue to do so. Now, if you are all satisfied about the subject, perhaps we could return our discussion to the  _ war _ we are facing?”

The conversation turned to the battles he had missed, to the state of their resources, to the stretch of battle before them. Kote offered what reassurances he could, and felt, through the entire affair, Thrull’s hot, furious gaze on him.

#

Kote itched to go down and spar - despite the pain in his body - by the time the long meetings ended. Such physical activity always settled his thoughts. His plans were derailed when his mother bumped into him outside the chambers, flicking her tail in a request that he follow along.

Technically, he knew he did not  _ have  _ to listen to such requests anymore.

But he’d never been a foolish man. And, besides, he’d missed her so thoroughly that he still ached with it. She’d been given different quarters, after his father died; ones she claimed that she prefered. They were spacious enough, strung with glowing shells that dripped from the ceiling, swaying gently in the water.

He glanced around the rooms as they entered, gaze drawn to the tightly bound skins tucked into the little cubbies along one wall. She’d been working on the histories for as long as he could remember, tracing and tracking what members of her family - his family - had done, back as far as she could go. 

He wondered what any of them would have to say about his recent choices. 

His mother distracted him from his musings, brushing a touch across his arm as she moved to hug him. For a long time, they said nothing to one another, only clinging, tightly. He felt her shake, pressed his face against her hair, and wondered how to possibly soothe her.

She had lost her husband. So many of her sons. Six children, taken away, lost to the depths of the deepest ocean trenches. Kote felt each brother lost deep inside his being, had barely gotten to mourn Crys and Bly, but... It was no better that she’d thought she had to number him among them, as well. “I’m sorry,” he said, because he could think of nothing better, and she made a sharp, harsh sound, shaking her head, clinging to him more tightly.

He did not try to speak again, only held her, until she turned for face and said, quietly, her voice ragged and low, “That was certainly a strategy I’ve not seen you employ before in the council chambers.” There was a question in the tilt of her head, the angle of her fins.

Kote shrugged, looking back to the scrolls. “I’ve been learning many things,” he said. There’d been no way to take direct action of any kind, while trapped in the tub. For so long he’d hurt too badly to even move. Even once he’d begun to recover…. Well. The lack of legs had kept him from doing much, unless he wanted to drag himself around on the ground.

The Goddess sometimes saw fit to teach her subjects, to educate them on different subjects. He did not know for sure that she’d intended that he learn patience, but...

“From your human,” his mother said, her tone tense as she drew back from him, her gaze sliding to the side as her mouth thinned. “You know you didn’t have to tell them about him. You could have just… let it go, they would have taken almost any explanation for your return.” 

Kote shifted, bumping his tail against hers. He said, thoughts racing along towards the future, the sweet, imagined time after the war was ended, “They would have found out eventually anyway, better that it be now.”

He felt her stiffen, heard the careful lack of tension in her tone when she asked, “Why would they have found out anyway?” He reached out, touching one of the scrolls she’d worked on so diligently. It must have dealt with recent events, for he saw her name - Va’yen - amongst the careful symbols. “Kote?”

“I made him a promise,” Kote said. “My human. Obi-Wan. I’m going back for him, once this is over.”

She said nothing for a long, long moment, but he could see her fins rising out of the corners of his eyes, the yellow-ish light rising off of her skin, all shock and alarm. He’d not expected any less. Still, she mastered herself quickly. She said, quiet, “That’s...why would you--”

“I love him,” Kote said, sparing her trying to find the end of the question, the only kindness he could offer in the moment and the truest explanation for his decision. He should not have spoken it aloud, not yet. It was improper to say the words to any but Obi-Wan, without ink set to skin, without his heart filled. For that reason, he had not told the council all of his story, he’d held his peace regarding Obi-Wan’s place in his life. But he felt as though he needed to tell  _ someone _ . 

He felt the ache of it, that love, even still. It seemed to grow and move within him, like a living thing, making itself known even through the joy and relief of coming home.He  _ wanted  _ to be home, to see his mother and brothers, to handle his duties and help his people.

But he ached, so deeply, with missing Obi-Wan. He closed his eyes, briefly, and flinched as no sweet images rose in his thoughts. His mind cut back to Obi-Wan sitting on the beach, instead, his arms limp by his sides, staring forward, sightless, and--

“I see,” Va’yen said, shaking him from his recollections. He found his hands had curled up. He shook his fingers out and turned to her, processing the reaction. He quirked his mouth up.

“I expected something more than that,” he said, hearing the amusement in his own voice.

She blew out a rush of water through the gills along her ribs, the fondness in her expression mitigating the exasperation of the gesture. “I’m your mother,” she said. “I’m - I should have expected that when you finally found someone, he’d be a human. You’ve always been like this, you know. Since you were born, you’ve always had to pick the most difficult path for everything.” 

He bristled, but only momentarily. There was nothing but affection in her eyes as she curled both arms around him and pulled him closer. Kote set aside any arguments against her statement. He said, instead, “I realize that the council won’t like it.”

“Oh, they most definitely won’t,” she said, amusement coloring her tone. “It breaks both tradition and law, but you know that.” 

“You think I should not return for him?” he asked, knowing, already, that her answer would not stop him or change his mind. His heart. He’d made a promise and he intended to keep it, as quickly as possible. Before the ache inside of him grew worse, before it damaged him, as somehow it must. Nothing that hurt so much could go on without damage.

“I think it doesn’t matter what I think,” she said, as though he had no secrets from her at all. Then again, he never had. She stroked her hand over the back of his head and said, her tone quieter, thoughtful, “Tell me about him. I wish to know more about this human who has done the impossible so often and somehow captured my son’s heart, a feat no one else has ever managed.” 

The prospect of trying to compress Obi-Wan down into words left Kote staring forward for a moment, his heart clenching in his chest. “He’s….” Kote trailed off, throat oddly tight around the words he wanted to speak. “Kind. And sad. Infinitely sad. And brilliant as the sun through the surface of the water. And I feel like a part of me is still back with him.”

“Oh,” she said, grip tightening for just a moment, and she listened, as Kote tried to explain all the rest, feeling awkward and stilted, knowing, with each sentence, that he was not doing appropriate justice to the man he loved.

#

Kote ended up, eventually, back in his chambers. He was weary, if nothing else. His rooms had always felt too large, startlingly empty. He’d moved into them after his appointment to the throne and they were all open space, all colors and soft lines.

By any metric, they were far superior to the cabin where he’d spent his convalescence. He pursed his lips, settling to sleep in a bed of living seaweed, the movement of the water comforting and sweet.

He did not want, really, to be sleeping in the tub again. It had been uncomfortable at the best of times, painful at the worst. But oh, he missed being able to open his eyes and look across at Obi-Wan in his bed.

Obi-Wan ever ended up curled into a ball, no matter how he arranged himself when he crawled into the bed. Kote had often watched him, wondering if he would curl into such a knot if they could sleep together.

Obi-Wan had tried to ball up, on the last night they’d spent together, after Kote had pulled the plug out of the tub and drained away the water. Obi-Wan had curled, holding onto him, but there’d been nowhere to go, and Kote had hummed softly to him, soothing him each time he tensed, praying that he could give Obi-Wan at least one night of peaceful sleep.

Kote had grown used to the little furrows that formed in Obi-Wan’s brows when he slept, to the sounds he made as the monsters in his head hunted for him. Obi-Wan had rarely looked peaceful in his sleep, but he had a few times.

He’d looked relaxed and at peace when he’d drowsed on the beach, after he’d allowed Kote to have him, given Kote something he’d never expected to receive from  _ anyone _ . There’d been no traces of strain on his expression, even with blood drying on his skin; he’d been soft and pliant and-- 

Kote opened his eyes, staring at the ceiling with an ache filling him up on the inside. He hoped, dearly, that Obi-Wan was keeping well.

He just didn’t believe it to be true.

Kote’s sleep was troubled, when it finally took him. He woke up multiple times, sure that Obi-Wan was stirring across the room, caught in one of the nightmares that woke him so frequently. Each time, he found himself alone. His dreams were little better, tangled knots of stories Obi-Wan had told him, braiding around one another.

He ended up rising early, moving through the halls of the palace while most people were still sleeping, only a few servants up and about. There were always servants doing some chore or the other, hauling things here or there, tending to all of the palace’s more fortunate inhabitants.

He ached, freshly, with the memory of Obi-Wan hauling water in for the tub, over and over, through the heat and the storms and--

Obi-Wan had never complained. Never shown any sign of irritation or frustration at the work asked of him. He’d just  _ done it _ , even before he’d known Kote was a King, and Kote was left with an aching, itching feeling that he’d never provided a proper thanks. 

He’d have the chance to, someday. 

Someday, he’d be able to make Obi-Wan understand exactly how he felt. That thought kept him company as he made his way through the palace, to the deeper levels carved directly in the stone, where so many of his family’s treasures had been stored over the years.

They had more jewels and collected finery than they could ever use. Much had been re-collected after the madness following his grandfather’s death. Jango had made a point of tracking down so much of what had been….lost. Taken, more accurately.

Kote moved through it with a clear idea of what he was looking for, still thinking of the stories Obi-Wan had told him. He’d learned much of how Obi-Wan’s people lived through tales and fables. Obi-Wan had to be coaxed into discussing the nightmares that haunted him, how his people did things in the present. But he would talk, freely, if Kote could approach a subject through the cover of a tale.

He’d gotten Obi-Wan to discuss marriage - Helen’s, for one, and the marriages of other princesses, mostly, in many of his legends - more than once. Enough to build an understanding of how courtship and marriage went, for Obi-Wan’s people.

Their traditions were different. But Kote saw no reason he couldn’t make Mandalorian traditions and human habits coexist. There was nothing amongst the vows and requirements of Obi-Wan’s people that openly conflicted with Mandalorian rituals. And there were some human traditions he found very intriguing.

He considered them as he moved deeper through the vaults. Most of the valuables inside had been crafted by his people over the ages. But not all of them. Some had come from human ships or strange boxes, left behind in the water.

Kote headed towards those stores, intent, and found what he was looking for without much trouble. Some of the human goods - necklaces, especially - his people wore easily. Some were less useful.

Rings were not worn by his people, for obvious reasons. Their very design conflicted with the webbing between their fingers. Still, someone had gone through and neatly arranged the rings they’d gathered over the years, each one in it’s own place, displayed.

Kote looked through them, stories and fables running through his head. Obi-Wan’s people required a ring to arrange a marriage. It was necessary, for the request to live a life together, Kote had gathered.

He’d had no ring with him on the shore. It had made things...difficult. Prevented him from asking for everything he wanted before he left.

He would not go back without one. He looked through the options, intimately familiar with the shape of Obi-Wan’s fingers, long and clever and-- He cut off the current running through his thoughts before his considerations wandered to the way Obi-Wan touched him. 

Kote found what he wanted in a thick golden band. He lifted it from it’s careful display, stroking his thumb across the surface. There were stones set into the band, sparkling blue, almost the color of Obi-Wan’s eyes and the sky. He imagined it around one of Obi-Wan’s fingers and his chest throbbed, aching.

Kote took the ring, when he turned to go, stopping along the way to collect a few other items. He’d made Obi-Wan a necklace from scraps, once, and been startled when Obi-Wan not only wore it but made no effort to  _ remove  _ it, ever.

He could do better than a patched together mix of shell and cloth, he decided, selecting another necklace, a set of arm bands…. And stopping, again, by a long string of pearls, carefully wound and contained so as not to tangle or knot.

Kote wanted to give Obi-Wan all the ceremonies the humans associated with a binding of two souls together. Blending in the traditions of  _ his  _ people was just as important. He ran his fingers across the pearls and could so easily imagine them, strung across Obi-Wan’s shoulders, his chest, down over his stomach, wrapped around one leg, perhaps, to allow Kote to spread his thighs instead of binding them together, and--

Kote shook himself and brought the pearls along, as well. 

He set aside the thoughts in his head, returned to his rooms, and left behind his prizes. His blood was still burning with the image of Obi-Wan in the pearls when he went to the training spheres, looking for some way to burn off the sudden heat in his gut. He’d spent so much of his life practicing, learning to fight. Kote had always excelled; his teachers said he had a mind for battle that they were happy to groom. 

Still, despite their words, he’d grown up mostly in a period of peace. After his father had retaken his throne with blood and blade, no one had seemed predisposed to start a fight. It was hard to know for sure if they spoke true, when there was no war to bring a true assessment. As a child, Kote had sometimes frowned out into the endless waters surrounding his realm, and wished there was a way to know for sure.

That was before the brief disputes that had started arising as he grew to a man.

His thoughts lingered in the past as he drew a spear from one of the racks designed to keep them from floating away. He’d followed his father, during those first brief campaigns, and learned what he could, but Jango had never fully recovered from the battles to retake throne and kingdom.

It had not taken long before Jango stopped venturing out, choosing to stay in Sundari, to handle the kingdom from his seat of power, trying not to agitate the old injuries that ever plagued him. Kote had not minded; he’d learned, by then, that he  _ was  _ skilled in battle, that he  _ could  _ handle a fight.

And he had never minded being away from home. The unease and yearning so many of his people wore when they were on a campaign for any amount of time had always seemed a strange affectation to him. 

He’d taken lovers before. Obi-Wan had not been the first. He’d felt affection for them, even, the men he’d chosen for the sharing of pleasure. But none of them had left him with an aching sense that they’d kept a piece of him, even after he left them. 

Kote swallowed, testing the heft of the spear and moving through a few warm-ups. His side ached, the scar tissue pulling with certain movements. Occasionally, there was a deeper throb, something  _ inside  _ of him that stung. 

But there was no burning pain to accompany the movements. He went carefully, in any case, not eager to damage himself all over again. It was too easy to recall the way Obi-Wan had gone pale and shaking, when Kote tried too much too quickly, when he’d torn some of the injuries open again.

He’d recognized the affliction that plagued Obi-Wan; some of his people experienced similar, especially those who fought too long, who were asked for too much. It had not taken long for Kote to realize that Obi-Wan had been burdened with more than anyone should carry, for all that he seemed sure he had failed to carry enough.

Such considerations spiked irritation down through his spine, into his chest. Obi-Wan’s people, apparently, had no way to help those so afflicted. Kote would have to make more adjustments to the laws, and he would have to find someone willing and pleased to offer aid to a human. He had no intention of allowing Obi-Wan to continue suffering, not when it was so unnecessary.

Kote considered his options and that led to thoughts about the war and by the time he was finished, aching and frustrated with his diminished strength, he had a rough plan for the rest of the day. He put away the spear and went to the healers, first.

#

Kote had never enjoyed trips to the healers, but they’d been necessary more than once in his life. He’d been accused of reckless behavior, and perhaps there’d been some truth to those allegations. 

The healers were ever and always busy in their great halls. Injuries and illness did not operate on anyone’s time table. His presence was noted quickly, and he lingered while the royal physicians were summoned. He was quite surprised, really, that they had not demanded to see him, previously. 

He wondered, while he was waiting, where exactly Kix was. Perhaps he was tending to Wolv personally. Kote would have to check. Having one of the royal family go into medicine had been startling, for many, but it was the only thing Kix had wanted to do or study.

And, Kix had pointed out, with a sharp little smile, that it was very unlikely he’d ever get anywhere near the throne, not with so many other brothers in the way. There were fewer of them, now, than there’d been when Kix made the jest. He’d never made it again, after they lost Rayshe’a, so many years ago. There was no longer much humor in it.

Kote shook those thoughts aside when Gha’ver - his physician since he was a child - finally arrived, looked him over, and said, with a frown, “Well, you look a fright. I’d heard something tried to tear you to pieces. Come on, then. Let’s see how bad it is.”

Kote waited through the examinations with as much patience as he could muster. Gha’ver’s touch was nowhere near so soft or pleasant as Obi-Wan’s, who had fretted always about doing Kote some harm, no matter how often Kote tried to reassure him.

Gha’ver just pushed at Kote’s stomach - hard - and assessed the scars that ranged across his skin. He ordered Kote to lift his arms and twist his back, to flex his tail this way and then the other, making little sounds in the back of his throat as he did. 

“Well,” he said, finally, swimming in a slow circle around Kote and prodding at his spine, “I must say that I’m shocked you’re alive.”

“I had excellent care,” Kote said, mouth quirking up all on it’s own. He ignored the unamused look he got in return. 

“I heard a human took you in,” Gha’ver said, making a sharp, displeased sound. “I’m glad you got away.”

And Kote froze, just for a moment, thinking about Obi-Wan carrying him out into the water, his expression so tightly contained that he seemed almost like he was sleeping, or dead. But his eyes had been shining - wet, and the sight of him crying had never stopped setting off alarms in Kote’s head, it seemed so  _ wrong _ \- and his voice had cracked when he spoke, and--

Kote said, “I didn’t get away. But I didn’t come here to discuss it. I only wanted to make sure I was well, inside. It hurts, still, sometimes.” It would have been easy to ignore the deep pain, but… He’d seen injuries on the inside come back later, bringing death with them. Such an injury had taken Jango, eventually. And he had promised Obi-Wan he would return. 

Gha’ver eyed him with a scowl and said, “You appear to be healing rather well, all told. The scarring is more extensive than I like. You may lose some of your range of motion, if we don’t take steps to mitigate the damage. And you’ve lost weight. Didn’t the human feed you?”

Kote frowned back; Gha’ver’s temper was well enough known. He got away with much that others would not, simply due to his skill and position. “As well as he could,” Kote said, because he’d spent too many mornings waiting for Obi-Wan to come back with as much food as he could acquire. He’d worked far too often to convince Obi-Wan to eat  _ any  _ of it, instead of trying to give it all away.

“Well, you’ll have to rebuild the muscle you lost,” Gha’ver went on, narrowing his eyes. “And I’d recommend you stay out of any fights until you’re fully recovered, but I assume I’d be wasting my words.”

Kote flashed him a smile. “You would, at that,” he said, and excused himself to handle the other tasks set before him in the healer’s halls. Wolv was resting, still, asleep when Kote went to check on him. But he seemed well enough, his color better than it had been.

Boba was sleeping in Wolv’s room, curled up tight. He’d grown while Kote was away, well into the awkward stage of his youth where his arms and tail were too long and lanky, not filled out properly. Kote stroked one of his curls, shook his head, and let them both asleep as he moved on to the next necessary step, though he did stop to send a message to the inkers, first, to inform them that their services would be needed, later. 

#

Obi-Wan’s supplies did not last as long as he’d expected they would, once he was on his own again. His appetite had nearly vanished, at first. He’d eaten, picking at food, when he remembered to do so, usually because Boga had whined for her own meal and reminded him that he ought to bolt down at least a few swallows.

As the days passed, his gut hurt more and more often when he forgot to eat. The pain acted as a reminder to have a meal, and the supplies started to run out, even supplemented by fish. He hesitated, looking at his increasingly bare cabinets. He’d promised Cody he’d be there, when Cody returned. If he was away at town, and Cody came back….

But, then again, the odds that Cody actually  _ was  _ coming back were startlingly low. That promise had been made of nothing but sweet words. Obi-Wan thought he could measure the exact value of sweet words. It wouldn’t be enough to purchase so much as a flower.

He sighed and readied his motorcycle, Boga watching him with one ear turned forward, panting in the summer heat. She’d never been alone - truly - before. When Obi-Wan had gone into town in the past, Cody had remained at the cabin with her.

“You’ll be fine,” Obi-Wan told her, and she whined, stretching forward to press her great nose against his ankle, dark eyes upturned. He sighed. “Fine,” he agreed, after a moment, “but I think you’d be happier staying at home.”

She seemed to disagree with him, willingly climbing into the sidecar and settling down, head hanging over the side. Obi-Wan looked at her - she didn’t weigh anywhere near as much as a human passenger would - and shrugged. He’d never driven with a passenger before, but how difficult could it be, really?

She looked quite pleased, once they got on their way, the wind pushing her ears back as she barked at seabirds and the air. Glancing over at her left a little swell of amusement - sweet joy - in the middle of his chest, and Obi-Wan held onto it as they reached town.

“Stay here,” he told her, stopping his bike in front of the general store, beneath the shade of a weathered tree. She barked at him, but stayed put. She was still in the side-car when Obi-Wan came out, arms full of a few necessary items; he’d shopped quickly, and Owen had not spoken to him at all, only watched him with a strange, dark look that felt terribly familiar.

Owen hadn’t said  _ anything  _ when Obi-Wan paid for his purchases, ignoring every attempt at conversation Obi-Wan made. 

Obi-Wan left with an itch between his shoulders blades. It only grew worse when he realized that Boga wasn’t alone.

The boy - Luke - was by the sidecar, both hands buried in Boga’s fur, laughing as she fawned under the attention. Obi-Wan watched them for a moment, nerves thrumming unpleasantly, certain that Owen was frowning out through the window at his back. He said, working to keep his tone normal, taking another step closer, “She’s especially pleased when you scratch behind her ears.”

Luke started, looking over at him. The summer sun had bleached his hair even lighter, Obi-Wan noted, and left him with peeling traces of sunburn. Luke did his best to look like he hadn’t just been playing with some stranger’s dog, and said, “Oh, I was just - she looked--”

“There’s no need to explain,” Obi-Wan said, putting his packages behind Boga in the sidecar.

Luke wrinkled his nose. He said, “She’s huge. No wonder you have to buy so much food.”

“She certainly grew more than I expected,” Obi-Wan said, surprised and discomfited that Luke had, apparently, decided that he ought to stay to chat. Luke reminded him, very much, of his students, though he was perhaps a little older, almost grown. 

“And you really just live out there in that shack with her?” Luke asked, nose wrinkling again, nothing but curiosity and a bit of scorn in his eyes. 

“It seems so,” Obi-Wan said, wondering if Luke would head back inside if he actually got on the motorcycle. He decided it was worth a try and swung a leg over to straddle his bike. Luke stayed where he was, arms crossed over his chest.

“I don’t blame you for not wanting to stay in town,” Luke told him, head cocked to the side. “I’m leaving as soon as I can.”

“Oh?” Obi-Wan asked, glancing over his shoulder, vaguely hoping that Beru or Owen would come and collect the boy, despite his earlier discomfort. They were, neither one of them, anywhere to be found. “And where are you planning to go?”

“Anywhere that isn’t here,” Luke said, frowning. He added, after a moment, sounding almost disappointed, “You know, you don’t really seem like you’re crazy.”

Obi-Wan blinked. He said, “Well, how very fortunate for me.”

Luke narrowed his eyes and then snorted a little laugh. “And you’re funny. Aunt Beru says you were probably in the war. She used to say that was probably why you act so weird.” 

Obi-Wan restrained a flinch and nodded in acknowledgement, fighting the way his throat wanted to tighten up. He tried to find a response and failed. Fortunately - or perhaps not - Luke appeared not to require one.

Luke continued, “I was going to volunteer. There was an enlistment center up the road. My friend Biggs went and he said that lots of people were lying about their ages. But Uncle Owen wouldn’t let me go.” He frowned, mouth twisting up, bitter, as he looked to the side and he couldn’t have been more than sixteen, if that.

A child. 

Obi-Wan shuddered, he did not  _ want  _ to imagine Luke across the ocean, did not want to imagine him shooting at men or being shot at, did not want to imagine him exposed to those horrors, to-- Boga made an anxious little sound, and Obi-Wan blinked down at her, refocusing. He said, “Your uncle is a wise man,” and heard the rasp in his voice. 

Luke snorted and said, “I doubt that. Did you bring anything back? Keep anything? My friend Biggs got to keep his 45.”

Obi-Wan had kept so many things he would rather be rid of. Mostly, he carried them around in his head. He said, thinking about the firearm under his pillow, frowning, “I brought a few things,” and when Luke opened his mouth  _ again _ , Obi-Wan revved the motorcycle’s engine to life, because it seemed to be the only way to end the conversation, and his heart was starting to beat all wrong. He nodded a goodbye and pulled away from the curb.

He did not look back, kept his eyes forward until he reached the cabin and could lean a hand against the wall, breathing raggedly, shaking and--

\-- _ there were men, dead men, all around him, some of them so young they looked like they didn’t need to shave. He reached for one, pressing his fingers to the man’s throat, the _ \--

\--sand was coarse under Obi-Wan’s hands as he struggled to breathe, to make his head work properly. He wasn’t even sure what had set the fit off, not really. Something about the way Owen had looked at him, or something Luke had said, or--

\-- _ there was no pulse, nothing but sticky wet against his fingers and _ \--

\--Boga whined and licked at his face, demanded attention until the horrors in Obi-Wan’s head let him go, until he could breathe again, his heart still jerking around, off-rhythm, inside of his chest. “Well,” he told Boga, his voice little more than a croak, as she tried to crawl into his lap, nosing at his badly shaking hands, “Let’s not do  _ that _ again, hm?”

#

A second council meeting in as many days left Kote’s jaw aching, but needs must. Some things had to be done, regardless of how little he enjoyed them. He prepared himself and felt settled by the time the rest of the council slipped into the chamber. 

He said, once they had come to order, moving through the opening rituals, “We don’t have enough forces to handle the shark-riders.”

Quiet spread out all around him. He read surprise on a dozen well-known faces, and took a moment to enjoy the fact that it was, perhaps, the first time he could ever recall the council being rendered speechless. It was, unsurprisingly, Thrull who spoke first. He said, sharp, “That’s untrue, we are holding--”

“We are  _ not  _ holding,” Kote cut in, tilting his head to the side. “We’ve lost ground. And even if we were holding… Continuing a war indefinitely isn’t a victory.”

There was another beat of silence, before one of the other councilors shifted forward, her pale tail twitching as she asked, “Perhaps not, but we have no more forces to send. Already, we are stretched thin.”

Kote nodded. He’d known they were over-extended even before he was injured. The fighting had gone on too long, already, wearing them down. Attrition would eventually destroy them, if an outright attack did not. They could not keep going as they were. 

“I know,” he said, and flashed a smile before Thrull could get a word in. “Which is why I am sending a delegation to the Togruta.” 

There were hums and clicks throughout the chamber, alarmed. Thrull said, coldly, “I don’t understand what purpose such an expedition could possibly serve.”

Kote shrugged, his pulse thrumming along. He felt almost like he were in a battle, which was a strange sensation to feel in the council chambers. He said, “We had friendly relations with them, once.”

There was another beat of silence and then Thrull scoffed, “You wish to ask them for  _ help _ ?” He made a disbelieving sound when Kote smiled.

“It serves their interests to help us,” Kote said. “We block their borders from the attackers. If we fall… They cannot match us in battle; or could not, before, anyway. They won’t be able to stand against the shark-riders on their own.” He shrugged. “An alliance would be a good idea, for us both.”

Thrull scowled at him. “You cannot do this,” he spat. “It is - we do not  _ beg  _ for assistance.  _ Especially  _ from the Togruta. It is--”

“Who said anything about begging?” Kote asked, fighting the itch beneath his skin, the urge to curl his lips back. “We can arrange an agreement. We used to work together, once.”

“That was before--”

“And there is no reason it cannot be so again,” Kote cut in, because they did not need to get into yet another furious argument about the role the Togruta had played in the damage done to his family, once upon a time, when his father had been young. They could not live always in the past. Not with war curled so closely around all of them. 

Thrull moved towards him,  _ his _ spines rising, just a little, from the surface of his skin. He snapped, “Your father would strike you for even  _ suggesting  _ such an accord.”

Kote stared back, pulse burning through his veins, and knew the words to be true enough. His father had never trusted easily, not after what had been done to Kote’s grandfather. That assassination - murder, really - had left scars that had wound throughout the entirety of his father’s reign.

But scar tissue limited mobility, if it wasn’t handled properly. And Kote could not allow it to impact his decisions. He could not allow those fears to cost his people, those who still lived, who were counting on him.

He said, exhaling all down his back, “My father is not king.” He wondered if he would have to issue the reminder at each council meeting. It would, no doubt, grow wearisome. “I am. Perhaps you have noticed the scar.” The mark across his brow  _ was  _ the most obvious difference between their visages, and he knew it. He took, very much, after Jango. “I  _ am  _ going to the Togruta. I will arrange a treaty, if possible, and--” 

“You can’t--”

“I  _ can _ ,” Kote said, a snap in the words, feeling his fins twitching. “Call for a full council vote, if you feel I am wrong and wish to argue it amongst yourselves while I am gone. But we need the assistance. So, unless you would all like to wait here for your deaths, unless  _ you  _ would like to face the sharks, this  _ is  _ what we are going to do.” 

For a moment, he thought that Thrull would take the opportunity as suggested, but only for an instant. Thrull enjoyed causing trouble, enjoyed opposing Kote at every opportunity. But he’d lose any chance of doing so effectively if he called too many council votes, if he lost too many times.

And he must have thought a loss written in the tides, because he drew back with a sneer. He said, snapping, “As you say, my Lord. You are certainly...much changed by your time among the humans.”

“And you are changed not at all,” Kote snapped back, settling himself with effort as his mother moved towards him, touching his arm. The rest of the meeting went well enough, as they dealt with the logistics of such a trip.

#

Kote had planned to - perhaps - get immediately on his way to the Togruta, after completing the last few tasks he needed to perform. That hope was dashed when he was informed of a feast that evening; apparently there was no way to avoid it. It seemed that his presence was required.

He’d never cared overmuch for the fine galas sometimes required of his family. And, currently, it felt like there was far too much going on for him to waste time drifting amongst crowds of people who would only titter and flash with color, trying to win favors.

The look on his mother’s face, when she informed him of the meal, broked no room for protest. “I’ll be there,” he promised, and brushed his cheek against hers before moving away, onto the next task before him. He moved through the city to the royal inker, after the meetings finally ended, and found Tesh already waiting, arranging her tools neatly.

He was glad he’d sent word ahead. It saved time.

The inkers had special places, in the city, specifically arranged to fit their needs. There were bubbles of air, caught long ago, in some areas. The air was stale, Kote realized, as he slid up through the surface, it did not taste anything like the air with Obi-Wan, but...it did not need to. He could keep his gills in the water and breathe normally.

Tesh had more experience and talent than any other inker, in Kote’s experience. Kote relaxed a little, at the sight of her. She’d done all of his markings, since he was only a small thing. She’d grown old, recently, but her eyes were still clear and her hands still steady, he noted, as she looked up at him, gray hair shorn close to her head.

“Well,” she said, looking nothing but unimpressed, “you’ve looked better.”

“And worse,” Kote told her, feeling no need to chide her for her insolence. The keepers of ink all knew they’d earned the right to speak their minds. It was...not quite religious, what they did, but it was important, in a way that stretched through skin and into bone.

The inkers marked them; almost all of Kote’s people bore at least a few marks. The inkers provided the service to everyone, from the royal family to the warriors to those who tended the seaweed patches. They’d long ago learned that skin did not vary much, between all of their clients.

Tesh made a sharp sound, nodded, and said, “Well, get over here, then.” She frowned up at him, gesturing at his chest, and added, “Your messenger said you’d found your heart. I was beginning to think you’d never fill it in.”

He shifted his tail; there’d been plenty of talk, he knew, about how long he had remained unattached, even after taking the kingship. Most married quickly, after such an event, if only to get to work on establishing the line of succession.

He knew his father and mother had married only scant days after his father took his crown.

Kote had considered that path, more than once, but it had never felt especially pressing. And he’d not worried much about succession. He had plenty of brothers, were something to happen to him. And he was fairly certain that they’d all accepted that, even if he’d decided to marry, such a union would not have led to sons or daughters of his body. 

“Things change,” Kote said, and Tesh nodded, gesturing for him to slide forward, up onto a little shelf of rock before her. It kept him mostly out of the water. Only his back and tail remained submerged and the air felt….familiar, on his skin, after so long spent out of the sea. 

Tesh turned away, to the other shelves in the small room, where she had countless little bottles arranged, needles and salves just waiting. “And what is it you’ve decided on?” she asked, her back turned to him. Her shoulders were broad but sloping, her skin absolutely covered with marks, for the inkers had to learn their craft on each other, before they set color into anyone else.

Kote’s mouth quirked up, though she was not looking. He said, “The sun.”

He watched her go still, only for a moment. She said, mixing something that he could not see, “An odd request.”

“Mm.” He felt no pressing need to justify or explain the choice. He’d considered it, before he ever left Obi-Wan’s little cabin. He’d  _ known _ exactly what he would select the first time Obi-Wan had taken him out to the tide pools, when he’d seen Obi-Wan’s hair blaze into reddish-gold, brilliant as the rays of the sun on the surface of the water.

He’d never seen anyone with hair of such a color, before.

“Are you sure?” Tesh asked, which was strange enough to drag Kote’s mind away from his memories. In all the years he had known her, every time she had set ink into his skin, she’d never once asked him that.

He remembered Obi-Wan, curled close to him in the tub, shivering from the chill in the water and still holding on, recalled a thousand other moments, recalled Obi-Wan sitting on the shore. He said, “Yes.”

“Very well, then,” Tesh said, turning back to him and raising an eyebrow. “I’ve never done the sun before. Be still.”

Kote did not need the advice. He flattened himself back on the stone and stared up at the carved ceiling overhead, feeling his skin and hair dry as Tesh leaned over him. She braced a heavy arm across his chest, grumbling to herself over the circle of naked skin over his heart, and he smiled, helplessly, at the first sting of pain.

Obi-Wan had asked him, once, if the tattoos hurt. There was an ache with them, a sting, but it never felt the same as an injury. It was, perhaps, a good kind of pain. He held still while Tesh worked, pushing ink beneath his skin with carefully sharpened spines. The work left his skin feeling hot and tender; it would ache for some time, he knew.

Tesh did not ask who the mark was for. He wondered if she had heard, already, the rumors that were surely spreading about his human, or if she simply did not care. She’d always been more preoccupied with her work than anything else, humming in the back of her throat as she traced outlines and filled them in, only pausing to gather more ink or to change her instruments.

Kote drifted, eyes closing as she worked, remembering the soft touch of Obi-Wan’s fingers across his skin, the way he’d traced the edges of the marks, his eyes so soft and so blue. He wanted, suddenly and deeply, to show Obi-Wan this new mark, to make him understand….

“There,” Tesh said, eventually, patting him on the stomach and pushing away from the edge of the shelf. “A fine job, if I do say so,” she added, as Kote pushed up on his elbows and tilted his head down, trying to get a look at the new marks on his skin.

Tesh had filled the empty circle of skin, filled it with a blazing sun, the edges curling, the center a swirl that led ever inward. The skin beneath was red and puffy, irritated. He brushed a touch across it and felt heat against his fingertips; he was left with little stains of black and red, blood and ink, on his skin.

She had put orange and red into the mark, threaded through, along with spots of gold. 

“A very fine job,” he agreed, rolling back into the water, out of the stale air, his heart aching in his chest. He resisted the urge to press at the ink again, a feeling of deep, sharp satisfaction ringing in his head as he looked down at the filled space.

It was, likely, he knew, going to agitate everyone at the banquet. And it meant he could - finally - tell everyone exactly what Obi-Wan meant to him. He curled his mouth, cutting through the water, to prepare for whatever unpleasantness he’d find next. Let them all be agitated. Perhaps it would help them accept his decisions.

#

A few of the palace servants saw the new marking, first. Kote watched them take note of it and then hastily avert their eyes. None of them said anything, though he was sure they’d carry the rumors off, spreading them around to those who would carry the news even further.

It left him with a feeling of sharp satisfaction in the center of his chest. 

His mother was the first to comment on the sun blazing on his chest, when he went to gather her for the feast. She stopped in the middle of her rooms, lighting up with surprise and alarm as she looked him over and said, “Oh, that’s…” She looked up to his face, her eyes wide and searching as she continued, “The  _ human _ ?”

“I told you I loved him,” Kote said, mild, and she blinked over at him, before making a little amused sound. 

“So you did,” she said, shaking her head, coming over to take his arm. She continued, as they set off towards the banquet, “Perhaps it will take some of the attention away from your decision to go to the Togruta.” 

He snorted. “I doubt that very much.”

The amused click she gave in response made him smile. She said, as they swam, ignoring the looks they were getting as they fell in with the crowd approaching the banquet, “You might have told me what you planned. With the Togruta.”

Murmurs started around them, nearly right away, as his new tattoo drew attention. 

“I might have,” he said, with a smile down at her. “But you  _ have _ been arguing that we do exactly as I’ve requested for years, now. I thought it would be a nice surprise, for you.”

She made a tetching sound, amused and chiding all at once, and said, “It’s reassuring to know that you do hear me, even when you aren’t listening. Ah,” she went on, before Kote could find a reply, turning to smile at a small crowd approaching them, mostly other women her age. “It appears I am needed, excuse me.”

He watched her go with a frown.

Kote had never  _ enjoyed  _ such galas, but even he could admit that he felt in unusually ill spirits during the meal. The food was delicious, of course. He’d gotten used to eating a few fish, some lobsters, and the other human foods that Obi-Wan provided. Some of them had been wonderful; he wasn’t sure he’d ever tasted anything as delightful as a strawberry.

But he’d spent much of his time out of the water at least a little hungry. And the food had been, largely…. Odd and bland. He’d not complained, Obi-Wan had done everything possible to make sure he had enough to eat. 

He should have enjoyed the chance to eat until he felt full, to enjoy the foods that were familiar and delicious. And there  _ was _ enjoyment as he picked this way through the delicacies provided to celebrate his return from the dead.

But his appetite fled him, at the same time, leaving his gut feeling hard and cold. He wondered, swallowing hard, if Obi-Wan had even remembered to eat throughout the day. He’d tended to forget, if Kote did not remind him. 

Even if he had remembered to feed himself, he’d had so little food. There would not be a feast spread in the little cabin. Perhaps he’d eaten a fish. A few berries. A piece of chocolate. Alone, not surrounded by crowds who were, if not actually happy to see him, at least very good at pretending that they were.

Kote’s gut was an ache by the time anyone - outside of his mother - gathered the courage to question his new marking. They looked, all of them, and murmured when he went past, and he wondered what any of them would say if he told them he’d rather be with Obi-Wan, in the little cabin, instead of listening to them titter about  _ nothing  _ while others risked their lives.

He was in a foul mood, by the time Thrull approached him, mouth thin and eyes narrowed. Thrull’s fins were already rising, before he said a word. Kote glanced over at him, arched an eyebrow, and asked, “Enjoying your meal, councilor?”

Thrull’s mouth twisted. He flashed, just once, orange-yellow light; gone too quickly to be taken as a threat, but there for long enough to be sure everyone around them saw it. Kote felt his spines rise, and fought their full extension.

“What have you  _ done _ ?” Thrull demanded, voice flat and hard. 

Kote twitched his mouth. He considered, briefly, feigning that he did not understand. But he’d never had patience for those games. “I found my heart,” he said, tilting his head to one side. “Generally, one offers congratulations, at such a time.”

Thrull scowl grew deeper. He said, “I can imagine none of our people who would lead to such a mark.”

And he was right enough about that. No Mandalorian could represent the sun; at least, none that Kote had ever met. He smiled, sharp-edged. “My heart is not of our people.”

Thrull jerked back from him, hissing, the sound a vibration through the water. “The  _ human _ ,” he all but spat. “You are so changed that you would try to claim a human for your heart?” Kote opened his mouth, and Thrull went on, “You would mark yourself for a  _ monster-- _ ”

Kote did not recall moving. He did not, in fact, move much at all, only shifted his position without thinking, slightly towards Thrull, who cut off, immediately. Kote watched him, unblinking, and said, aware of a growing spread of quiet, all around them, “Watch how you speak. He is my betrothed.”

Kote could not call Obi-Wan his husband. Not yet. There were….rituals to complete, before that was allowed. Betrothed would have to do, for now, even though it was an insufficient descriptor with the ink on his skin, showing exactly who caused his heart to beat.

Thrull stared at him, easing back even as Kote flicked his tail, rolling his shoulders as he slid out into the open water, away from the thrumming drums and the singing within the banquet area. No one tried to catch him back. It was quieter, above the hall, the city spread out all before him.

He looked across the buildings spiralling out from the palace, the people going about their business, and felt…

Torn in two.

“My Lord,” a nervous looking servant asked, eventually, approaching him from the side, wringing her hands together, “you are - that is - they are wondering if you would say a few words? Inside?”

Kote glanced over at her and gritted out, setting aside thoughts and worries about Obi-Wan, “Yes. I’m coming.”

#

Kote slipped away, eventually, from the gala. He felt exhausted and wrung out. He’d gotten used to the feeling. Every time he pushed too hard, the injuries he’d taken were sure to remind him of the mistake. He’d grown accustomed to Obi-Wan fretting over him, in such cases, to gentle touches along his side and soft warmth.

He disliked, immensely, the knowledge that Obi-Wan was likely sleeping, curled up in his bed all alone. Perhaps nightmares were stalking through his head. They often did. He’d woken Kote so many times, with tears and ragged noises torn from this throat.

There would be no one there to tend to him. No one to call him back from the things he saw in his head. 

Kote was in a dark temper by the time he reached his chambers, setting aside the bands he’d worn around his arms, the weapon belt around his shoulder and waist. He hissed, a little, rubbing at the healing bite on his side, thinking of Obi-Wan, unable to stop.

It appeared it would be several days before he could leave Sundari.  _ Apparently _ , it was a good idea to send someone ahead, to inform the Togruta of his intentions. He did not  _ want  _ to wait. He wanted to return to Obi-Wan, to check, to make sure he was keeping his promise, to--

Kote ended up calling for Eyayah, who arrived looking bedraggled, hair out of order and with little reddened marks along his shoulders. “Did I interrupt?” Kote asked, looking over at his younger brother and raising an eyebrow. 

“You know you did,” Eyayah said, frowning over at him. His fin was far more green than any of the rest of them, more like their father’s. “And don’t pretend you’re sorry about it.” The set of his fins said he wasn’t overly irritated about it, despite the sharpness of his tone.

“Alright,” Kote agreed, “I won’t.”

Eyayah twitched his tail, moving to bump his shoulder against Kote’s. “What is it you want, then? You know, you could have just spoken to me at the banquet.”

“No, I couldn’t,” Kote said. He hadn’t known exactly what he wanted, at the banquet. And, anyway, it wasn’t a request he would have made around so many other listeners. He said, “You know I was saved by a human.”

Eyayah grew still, turning to look at him, curiosity moving across his expression as his gaze dipped pointedly to the sun on Kote’s chest. “I may have heard a few things about it,” he said, amusement curling through his voice. Kote shoved Eyayah with his tail, pushing him back a bit, and Eyayah went on, “Everyone’s very curious to find out more about your - your human.”

Kote nodded, glanced to the side, and asked, “How would you like to?”

“To -- what?” Eyayah asked, rolling through the water to get a better look at him. “You want to talk about your human?” He sounded, suddenly, very curious and very young, all his put-upon irritation falling away, until he was just Kote’s second-youngest brother again, too young to fight, yet, but so close to a man grown that it hurt to look at him, sometimes. 

He would be sent to the lines, soon, if the war continued. Kote knew it, could feel the future in the same way he felt the tide. He’d lost enough brothers. He couldn’t bear to lose any more. And he wasn’t sure if the alliance with the Torgruta would go through, or not. He… sighed, all the plans in his head building on one another.

“Not quite,” Kote said, mouth twisting. He could still see, terribly clear, Obi-Wan on his knees on that beach. There was an ache in the center of his chest that insisted he was still there, even all this time later, just waiting, and--

“I want you to go check on him,” Kote said, and heard Eyayah make a surprised little sound. “Keep an eye on him. Make sure he’s alright.” He flexed his fingers out. “Come and tell me, if something is wrong.”

“Kote…” Eyayah started, all the amusement gone from his tone.

“He’s well away from the fighting,” Kote went on, frowning. “So you should be safe enough. He’s living by a little bay. Enclosed. There are plenty of fish around. Crustaceans. You shouldn’t go hungry. You don’t have to do anything, just….”

Eyayah shifted a little closer, tail bumping all along Kote’s side. He said, “I--”

“It’s not an order,” Kote went on, feeling tense all down his spine, because he knew well enough that if he made it an order, Eyayah would refuse outright. He  _ wanted  _ to know someone was looking after Obi-Wan. And he  _ wanted  _ Eyayah away from here, if his work with the Togruta failed. At least one of his brothers would be safe. “If you don’t wish to go, I’ll select someone--”

“Shut up,” Eyayah said, shoving at his shoulder, hard enough to push him through the water. “Of course I’ll go and look after your human for you.”

“His name is Obi-Wan,” Kote said, feeling tension in his throat, in his chest, alongside sweet relief; he wanted to be the one to go back, to ensure that Obi-Wan was doing well, but… He cleared his throat. “He’ll understand you, if you talk to him.”

Eyayah froze. He said, quietly, “Wait. You taught him to talk?”

“He already knew how to talk,” Kote snapped back; there were plenty of tales that said otherwise. “He just didn’t know Mando’a.”

Eyayah was quiet for a moment, and then nodded. “Is there something I should tell him?”

Kote stared forward, for a long moment, imagining Obi-Wan on that beach, remembering the way they’d curled together, his last night. His throat felt tight, full of jagged edges. He said, working his jaw enough to free the words, “Tell him that I keep my promises.” He drew a breath, somehow. “And give him this,” he said, looking through the items he’d gathered earlier, drawing out the blue-tinted armband that he thought would look lovely against Obi-Wan’s skin.

Kote’s eyes burned with exhaustion by the time Eyayah finally slipped from his chambers, taking with him directions to Obi-Wan’s home. He promised to leave in the morning, which was all Kote could realistically ask of him. Kote heard him apologize for swimming into someone outside and shut the door with a sigh, moving in fitful circles, despite his exhaustion. He settled, finally, and stared upwards.

Eyayah would go and ensure that Obi-Wan was fine. It would keep him safe, as well. That would have to be good enough, until Kote could end this war, resolve any further issues, and go check himself. He closed his eyes, frowning, and resolved to get out of Sundari as quickly as possible.

Of course, Kote found leaving Sundari to be nearly impossible, over the days that followed. There were so many matters to settle, things that had been left to wait while he was gone, as Rex avoided the capital at all costs. 

He’d not realized Rex so very dearly wanted to avoid taking the throne. Kote crooked his mouth at the thought that, perhaps, it would be one of Rex’s children on the throne, in the end, anyway. If he ever managed to have any. For all the comments on Kote’s romantic habits, he knew perfectly well that Rex had not found anyone, either.

Kote dealt with countless people, in the following days, and each of them spent a portion of the time staring at the sun on his chest and trying to ensure he did not notice. 

He caught even his mother’s eyes on the new marking, more than once, something troubled in her expression.

He had to deal with Thrull, too often. The man scowled every time they ran into one another, though he managed to remain civil through the meetings they spent together. He could glare hotly all he wished, Kote supposed. It meant nothing, in the grand scheme of things. And any grumbling he engaged in would only be a waste of time.

The meetings and work felt as though they would never end. It did not help that the healers seemed reluctant to declare him well enough to leave, as though he had not already engaged in battle.

One issue piled atop the next, keeping him in Sundari, handling problems only he was in a position to handle, home and yet wracked with a terrible feeling of home-sickness, an ache for a familiar smile and quiet evenings and the soft brush of Obi-Wan’s mouth.

Days had passed, before he finally settled the last of the tasks before him, and left Sundari behind with far less fanfare and with a retinue at his side, heading for the lands of the Togruta, to seek an alliance, an end to the war, and some battered kind of hope for the future.

#

Obi-Wan came to look forward to his early morning swim out into the ocean, in an odd way. It was the closest he could get to Cody, which was a laughable fact, when he thought about it. The ocean was impossibly large and he barely managed to get out of his little bay, but…

It was all that he had. He’d been surprised by how quickly he improved. He’d known the basic strokes for swimming, even if he’d rarely had the chance to use them. Short jaunts turned longer as he struck further and further outward, ever returning shivering from the cold and with his arms and legs throbbing from the exertion.

He came back from so far he’d barely been able to see the shore one morning and froze as he got closer to the sand, something odd catching his attention.

There was movement on the beach. There usually was; Boga had grown quite fond of chasing the seabirds, which was for the best. It kept them away from Obi-Wan’s rods and fishing supplies. 

Boga had not involved herself with catching birds, that morning. Instead, she was rolling around on the sand, while a figure bent over beside her and--

It took Obi-Wan a jarring moment to make sense of the slight figure on the shore, the sandy hair and the laughter carrying out across the water. He frowned, when he did, spat water out of his mouth, and struck out for shore and the boy waiting there. Luke. The shopkeeper’s nephew.

The boy straightened from where he’d been playing with Boga when Obi-Wan reached the breakers. He looked over, mouth falling open, as Obi-Wan walked out of the waves. He’d, obviously, made the right choice when leaving his underclothes on for his morning swims.

“Good morning,” Obi-Wan said, striving for normalcy even as alarm rang all down through his chest. No one had  _ ever  _ come out to his cabin before - as far as he knew - much less to the beach beyond. It was  _ his  _ space, and Cody’s, or it had been, and--

The presence of another person made his nerves thrum, unpleasantly. 

Luke seemed not to notice, blinking rapidly and shifting on the sand before he blurted, “Morning! You - uh - you weren’t at the cabin, but, well, I heard your dog, barking at the birds, I guess, so I thought maybe you were down here and...were you out in the water?”

Obi-Wan stood, dripping on the sand, soaked from head to toe, and said, “Indeed I was.”

Luke nodded, cleared his throat and scuffed a foot through the sand. He finally looked to the side, abruptly, and said, “Isn’t that, well. Cold?”

“Quite so,” Obi-Wan said, bending and grabbing the towel he’d brought along, reaching up to scrub at his hair. Walking through this conversation felt like trying to navigate a patch of barbed wire. There was a part of him that wanted to tell the boy to go, right away, to turn and leave his space, but--

That would have been immensely unkind. He couldn’t make the words get past his tongue. He turned aside, instead, bending to scratch behind Boga’s ears, and asking, “Is there a reason you’re so far from town? Do your aunt and uncle know you’re all the way out here?”

Luke made a scoffing sound. “I’m not a kid, you know,” he said, “I can go where I want to go.”

Obi-Wan dropped the towel and reached for his shirt, focusing on simple tasks. “Of course,” he said, trying to remain agreeable, “so why, exactly, did you want to come out here?”

“You haven’t been to town for a while,” Luke said, like that was some kind of explanation. Obi-Wan looked over at him, doing up the buttons on his shirt as quickly as he could with his cold fingers. Luke shrugged with one shoulder, looking away again, hurriedly. It had not - really - been very long at all since he was in town. He wondered why the boy was lying to him. “So I came out to make sure you were alright.”

“Well,” Obi-Wan said, and decided  _ not  _ to bother with the pants, for the moment. His underclothes were still soaked. He wrapped the towel around his hips, instead. “As you can see, I’m fine, so--”

“Why were you swimming?” Luke asked, before Obi-Wan could manage to formulate a polite way to ask him to leave, as quickly as possible.

Obi-Wan blinked at him, looked out across the water, and said, “I enjoy it.” That was close enough to the real explanation, anyway. He  _ needed  _ to be as close as possible to Cody, and his head felt quiet when there was nothing but the water all around him and the burn in his muscles and lungs. He didn’t have to  _ think  _ while he was swimming, he just….was.

Luke pulled a face again. “You don’t even have a proper suit,” he said, accusatory.

“Generally,” Obi-Wan said, voice the only dry thing about him at the moment, “no one is around to notice.”

Luke nodded, agreeable and, apparently, shameless. He said, “Did you catch these fish?” and gestured at the bucket where the morning’s breakfast waited. 

Obi-Wan looked around the otherwise empty beach and said, “Yes. It was me.”

“I’m really hungry,” Luke said, crouching and shaking the bucket a little. “I didn’t have breakfast yet.”

Obi-Wan seriously considered kicking some sand at him. He had no idea why the boy was  _ lingering  _ and wished he’d go away. But… He was a child, despite his protests to the contrary. Obi-Wan sighed. “Help me gather my things. I’ll fix you something to eat, before you head back.”

“Sure,” Luke said, apparently more than happy to impose on someone he barely knew. Obi-Wan sighed again; at least Boga seemed to be in a good mood. She danced around Luke all the way back to the cabin, where he looked around with open curiosity and a hint of a grimace on his face, echoed in his voice when he said, “I thought it’d be different, inside.”

Obi-Wan looked over at him, sitting on the one chair by the table, and wondered, exactly, how he’d possibly ended up in this situation. He didn’t  _ want  _ the shopkeeper’s nephew joining him for breakfast. He didn’t  _ want  _ anyone else in his house. And yet…

He slid over a plate of fish and said, “Do I need to drive you back into town, or can you make it on your own?”

Luke rolled his eyes, and, at least, did not complain about the food. “You worry a lot, mister, did anyone ever tell you that?”

And Obi-Wan froze, for just an instant, because Anakin had always been telling him not to worry so much, that they’d be fine, that--

“--happened to you, anyway?” Luke asked, jarring Obi-Wan out of his thoughts, leaving him with an unpleasant tightness in his chest. He was gesturing, Obi-Wan noted, from far away, towards Obi-Wan’s neck. “To your shoulder?”

“Oh,” Obi-Wan said, blinking, fingers reaching up for the marks on his shoulders. They’d started to scar; his endless picking at them had ensured that. “I--cut myself.”

Luke cast him a disbelieving look and said, scornful, “Sure looks like something bit you.”

“I’m sure your aunt and uncle are worried about you,” Obi-Wan said, leaning back against the wall and crossing his arms. He felt itchingly aware of the marks, even though they were covered, now. He hadn’t - he didn’t  _ like  _ the idea of anyone else seeing them, but at the same time it was a relief to know that someone else  _ saw  _ them.

Luke made a disagreeable sound and rolled his eyes. “I doubt it,” he said, “what do you do out here all day, anyway?”

Obi-Wan considered, briefly, the idea of bodily lifting the boy and dumping him outside the cabin. Horrifyingly, he wasn’t sure that would actually make him leave. Quite possibly he would only linger outside, shouting questions through the window. 

“I fish,” Obi-Wan, blandly as possible. “And I swim. You should really get--”

“And you read, I guess,” Luke said, plucking up one of Obi-Wan’s notebooks. He thumbed through it. 

“Yes,” Obi-Wan agreed. “What do  _ you  _ do?”

And that, as it turned out, was the wrong question to ask. Luke seemed content to spend the rest of eternity complaining about all the work his aunt and uncle expected him to do, and his immense boredom, now that so many of his friends had left, and the general unsatisfactory state of the town, as far as recreational activities went. 

He followed Obi-Wan out to the little garden and did, at least, do some work weeding around the tomatoes. At some point, for reasons that Obi-Wan could not discern, he decided that he’d had enough time spent under the hot sun and brushed his hands off. He said, “Well, I’ll see you later,” as he headed off towards his bike.

Obi-Wan stared after him for a moment, and hoped the words were a lie.

He shook his head and washed off his hands. Boga followed him, when he went back down to the beach, to sit on the sand and stare out over the sea. He brought along some food and his notebooks, reviewing his own handwriting, remembering what he’d had, the loss of it consuming him slowly from within.

As the sun set, Obi-Wan dragged over driftwood and pieces of the scraggly bushes that grew all along the shore. He piled them in the fire pit he’d made for cooking fish, some mornings, and started the fire, a blaze of orange and red against the enclosing dark of the night.

Signal fires had ever called home weary travelers.

Obi-Wan looked out across the ever-moving sea, his throat getting tight, and turned aside, trying to shake that thought away. A fire would never register as a communication device for Cody, after all. Still, he hesitated on the shore, avoiding the cabin.

He wrote Cody another note, beside the fire, the flickering light casting strange shadows across the pages, constantly changing the shape of the words he wrote, smearing  _ \--and I would have seen you, one more time, but I understand the duties that fell on you. I hope that you are happy. Please do not worry _ \--

He filled a page and stopped at the bottom, shocked by the words marching across the paper in neat little rows, a letter to himself, more than anything else. He could not get it to Cody, after all. Even if he could, Cody couldn’t read it.

Obi-Wan swallowed, glancing at the flames again, a weight pressing down on him from the inside. The gods - those worshipped by Odysseus, anyway - had always appreciated burnt offerings. They’d been soothed and placated by the sacrifices of mortals. Persuaded, sometimes, to allow their subjects some measure of peace or relief.

Sometimes, they’d provided impossible things. Miracles. He wondered if Posiedon could have been convinced to return Cody safely to his people. To see an end to his war. To ensure he lived a happy and long life.

But Posiedon, of course, did not exist.

And Obi-Wan doubted Sho’cye even knew what a burnt offering was, if she did. But perhaps she would find such a thing novel. She liked, as far as Cody had managed to explain, new and different things. Obi-Wan smoothed a hand over his neat handwriting and then, carefully, pulled the page from the book.

He folded the page into thirds, smoothing each edge, and stood before feeding one corner into the flames, watching the fire curl up around it. Obi-Wan drew his hand back, holding the letter as the flames ate down through it, sending off embers and sparks into the endless night sky, tiny stars fluttering up to join their fellows in the firmament.

The heat burned his fingertips, as the fire consumed the last of his clumsy words. He held on as long as possible, heat searing his knuckles, before he gently released the edges of the paper, watching them drift towards the water as the fire finished it’s destructive work. The smoke and ashes swirled around him and he stood, shivering despite the fire, eyes burning as the night stretched endlessly onward.


	3. Chapter Three

Obi-Wan fell into patterns of behavior easily and ever had. He functioned well with a set schedule and had developed one, by necessity, when caring for Cody. He continued going through those motions in the long stretch of days that followed, adding only his swim out into the ocean every morning and the writing of a note he never finished, every night, always feeding the paper to the flames.

There was no one to sit and speak with at night, so he returned to the sea after the work of the day was done and stood on the rocks and sand to stare out across the water. Boga would follow and sit by his feet. He wondered if she missed Cody, too, if she understood where he’d gone.

They waited, together, heading back to the cabin only after the sun fully set and darkness curled up out of the sea, wrapping the entire world in velvet. The stars would stretch endlessly overhead, each one a point of light so distant it could never be touched.

Obi-Wan curled his arms around his chest one evening. He’d held a star, briefly, basked in the warmth and glow of Cody’s presence. But he’d gone, so far away, and promises or not…

He and Boga skipped their visits to the beach only when storms shook the world all around them. They grew worse as summer reached for autumn, tearing apart the sky and making the ocean rage. There was no one to sing to keep out the worst of it. 

Obi-Wan hummed to himself, for the good it did, trying to breathe through the crack and throb and--

And the first storm, after Cody left, he pressed into a corner, pulse jumping erratically, and Boga came out from under the bed and insisted on trying to crawl into his lap, instead. She was really far too big to fit; but she was shivering and her eyes rolled around. He’d seen no option but to make a space for her.

She whined in her throat, licking at his face and pressing her heavy feet all over his chest and legs. “Sh, sh,” he said, trying to soothe her, his head a jumble of the past and present. Boga was, if nothing else, close to eighty pounds of the present, fur soft and thick under his hands, breath stinking of fish, and, somehow, the two of them got through the storm.

Obi-Wan felt exhausted by the time it faded away in the small hours of the morning, exhausted and itchy under his skin all at once.

Boga must have felt only the exhaustion, because she barely stirred when Obi-Wan dislodged her to stand. He burned, all down his nerves, and his mouth tasted sour. He paced through the cabin, wishing--

For things he could not have. He’d gotten spoiled. Used to things he wasn’t supposed to have. 

He kept looking over towards the tub, expecting -  _ wanting  _ \- to see Cody there. The sob in his throat took him by surprise and drew an unhappy sound from Boga, who stirred from her pile on the floor.

“I’m fine,” he told her, even as he bent, putting both hands on the side of the tub, horrified by the way he was shaking. It was ridiculous. He just--

Ached, all inside of his chest. He felt as though someone had broken through the center of his ribs and removed everything within his bones. The storm had  _ passed _ and he’d made it through, but the emptiness of the cabin - of the tub - left his throat squeezed tight and his eyes burning.

He knocked the water on without thinking, watching water run into the tub for a moment before clumsily climbing over the side, leaving his clothes on. The water did not smell of salt, but it was as cold as the ocean.

He hunched in, leaning his head against the side of the tub, and gasped for breath, all he could do with the constriction around his chest. He shivered, but at least he could blame that on the cold water, filling up around him.

Boga leaned over the side of the tub and licked at his face again; he didn’t have the energy to try to shoo her away. He folded his arms close to his chest, and wished for things he’d never been meant to have in the first place.

And morning came, eventually. It brought more storms with it. Days of storms, which prevented him from going anywhere close to the shore.

#

Kote grew more uncomfortable with every day traveled towards the Togruta’s land. He understood that the visit needed to occur; after the situation that had led to the falling out between their peoples…. Well. No one else could go, no one but him could attempt to ease the tensions.

But that didn’t mean he had to like it. 

He’d never seen one of the Togruta in person. He’d only heard stories about them, and most of those stories had been tinged with anger and disgust. The Togruta had, after all, played a pivotal role in the assassination of his grandfather.

His father’s father had died before Kote was ever born - ever conceived, even. His father had been a boy when he’d had the kingship thrust upon him, holding his father’s body. Jango had never spoken, much, about the nightmare that situation must have been. Kote had put the history together from the things Jango didn’t say, from the things others whispered about, from records of the entire affair.

The Togruta had not killed his grandfather. Not directly. But they’d provided information that had facilitated the entire event. They’d, perhaps, expected it to destabilize the country. Certainly, thrusting a boy onto the throne could have that effect.

Jango had been too stubborn, too bloody-minded to allow that.

He’d been forced out, for a time, driven from the county as the usurping forces moved in. And perhaps things would have ended there, perhaps everything would have fallen apart. But Jango had found a way to gather his scattered forces, instead, led them as he grew into a man all at once.

He’d taken back the realm and he’d brought Kote’s mother back with him, fallen deeply in love with her - just a girl from a distant outpost, with no riches or standing or even family to speak of - while waging his war.

And they had reforged a life for one another, for their children, for their people. Time had moved onward, but Jango had never forgotten the death of his father, never re-established a relationship with the Togruta, had, in fact, led skirmishes against them, until…

Kote wished, resting one evening, close to the border with the Togruta, that he could talk to Obi-Wan about it. He’d gotten so used to having someone to speak with, openly and easily. He’d never had to worry that Obi-Wan would twist his words against him, would do anything but listen to him with care and concern.

Eyayah should have reached Obi-Wan, already. Should have reached him days ago, in all honesty. Kote held onto that thought. Eyayah would have been tired by the time he arrived. Tending to him would distract Obi-Wan, would, hopefully, help him. Kote could imagine them together, just as easily as he could imagine nuzzling against Obi-Wan’s neck and discussing all his current troubles.

Obi-Wan, he considered, looking up towards the distant surface of the water - impossible to see from his current depth - would know what to say, would be so warm, if Kote reached out for him. His skin would be soft under Kote’s hands or mouth…

Kote shifted. He was supposed to be resting. They’d reach the Togruta in the morning, and he needed to have a sharp mind. Thoughts of the way Obi-Wan looked, all flushed and sweet, were only heating up his blood. 

He set them aside, with effort, working not to think about the way Obi-Wan always pressed into his touch, so openly hungry for such affection. His dreams were full of brief snatches of memory, of Obi-Wan’s voice, the curve of his shoulder and the line of his back, the taste of his blood - salty and thick and--

Kote felt out of sorts by the time he woke, scrubbing a hand over his head and focusing. The day would, perhaps, turn the course of the war. He held that thought in his heart as his party moved out.

They’d sent messengers ahead to inform the Togruta that they were coming. Kote hoped, sincerely, that they had not been killed on sight. He hoped, approaching the borders, that the Togruta would be reasonable, open to discussion.

There was a relief to finally spotting a delegation waiting ahead of them in the water. The Togruta had come out to their borders, far from their fortifications and cities. Kote didn’t blame them. They waited, fins all fully spread and flared - warning - as Kote’s group approached.

The Togruta in the delegation all carried weapons. Kote raised a hand, tilting his tail, and his own group drew up close. “I come only to talk,” he called across, heart beating hard in his chest, hoping--

A woman moved away from the group, just a little. She’d stained her skin all in red and wore her hair in two tremendous braids, sculpted with kelp and corals, as was the style among her people. Her eyes were dark. She’d tattooed the skin all around them to make them look much larger. She said, raising a hand, “And we have come to listen.” 

It was, Kote thought, with a surge of relief, a start.

He wondered, swimming forward and extending a hand, spines all contained within his skin, what Obi-Wan would think, when Kote told him the story. He wondered what Obi-Wan was doing, at that moment. Eyayah would be there, making sure Obi-Wan was safe and well. Kote held onto that thought, reaching out towards the woman who represented the people who had taken a hand in the murder of his grandfather.

The council had claimed that Jango would not have approved of Kote sparing Obi-Wan’s life. Perhaps they were right, Kote would never know. But he was painfully aware that his father must be cursing him from beyond the grave for his current actions.

Jango had never forgiven the Togruta, never tried to move past the actions of a few. It had...been like a poison or a brand, stamped directly onto his heart.

Kote felt the anger of it, inside his own chest, as though it had been passed down along with his eyes and the features of his face, his build. He had enough people, likely, to take the entire delegation apart, to strike a blow at them, and…

And he would still be at war against an enemy he didn’t have the numbers to turn aside. There was a time for anger and - realistically - a time to set it aside. He had a war to win, a people to protect, and the best option for doing that was floating in front of him. 

He nodded as the woman took his hand, her scales red and white, tinged here and there with purple. 

“I am Shaak Ti,” she said, tilting her chin up, a name that Kote knew, that he had heard spoken many times in the council chambers back at home. The sister of the Togruta Empress. One of the Generals of their people. “I suppose you should tell me what you want to discuss.”

Kote smiled, tightly, making sure to keep his teeth covered. He said, “You know who I am. And I’m here to discuss the safety of your people. And mine.” And, as she nodded, turning to gesture him towards the seafloor below, where a small camp had been set, he spared one last thought for Obi-Wan.

#

Boga had largely gotten over her distaste of the ocean as they went down to the surf over and over. She still stayed well back from the waves themselves, but no longer kept her tail tucked back between her legs whenever the water got too close.

She was happy enough to dig for the little crabs that lived along the shore line and to carry around driftwood, while Obi-Wan set up his rods and prepared for the day. Most of the time. Obi-Wan eyed her, the morning after the storms eased, as she grumbled in her chest, pacing back and forth by the tideline, a ridge of hair raised down her back.

“What?” he asked her, driving the last of the rods deep into the sand. He knelt beside her, moving slow, but she refused to settle. “Bad night?” he asked, worried by her upset. “Wake up on the wrong side of the bed?”

She only resumed her pacing, a growl building in the barrel of her chest. 

Obi-Wan stood, brushing off his hands, and advised her, “You’re not going to frighten it, darling.” She quieted for a moment at his voice, but resumed her fretful movement almost right away. Obi-Wan left her to it, sighing and stripping off his shirt, his boots, and his pants.

Boga barked, sharp and unhappy, as Obi-Wan stepped into the water. He looked back at her, wading further out, until the breakers crashed at his hips, and said, “It’s alright. I’m just going for a swim. I’ll come back, just as I always do.”

She was panting, hard, her claws sunk into the sand. Obi-Wan pursed his lips. Getting out of the water would only mean being cold and putting off the inevitable, but… He could not bring himself to leave her while she was so obviously agitated. He sighed, took a step back towards the shore, and caught, from the corner of his eye, a flash of movement down in the water.

For a half-second, Obi-Wan thought it was sand, stirred up from his own bumbling movements.

And then he registered  _ color  _ \- a flash of light off of scales- and his heart surged in his chest, hope and relief and--

And something hit him, hard, around the thighs.

He registered the feeling of skin against his - a shoulder, perhaps, against his thigh - and then there was water, everywhere, as he was dragged over. He’d been hit hard and fast. He shoved out, automatically, at the - the person who had slammed into him.

It was impossible to see under the water. The sand was all churned up and the salt of the water stung his eyes. The impact had knocked the air out of him. He--

Something sliced through his skin, someone  _ gripped  _ at his legs as he kicked out, claws sliding into skin and muscle. He resisted the urge to cry out, terribly aware of the water all around him, the waves crashing down and trying to tumble him around, even as other hands grabbed for him, gripping at his arms and shoulders. There was pressure against his neck, for an instant, before the cord of his necklace gave, disappearing, and--

The clawing grip on his thighs disappeared, all at once. Obi-Wan elbowed back at the person gripping his shoulders, twisting. He cried out - water flooding into his mouth - at the hot-shivery slide of agony down into his shoulder. He’d been stabbed before; he knew what it felt like.

He twisted around, got his feet on the sand, and lurched to standing, taking the person hanging on his shoulders along.

Everything was madness.

The water churned beside him, tinging with red. Boga was in the surf, a snarling mass of fur and teeth, jerking her head back and forth. An arm curled around her, a hand with webbed fingers and claws scrambled at the thick fur around her neck, finding no purchase.

And weight hung off of Obi-Wan’s shoulders. A body was plastered close to his back, heavy and with a heaving chest. The person made a sharp, choking sound. There was another jerk of movement, a third figure approaching through the surf, and Obi-Wan stopped thinking.

His head went cold and still as he lurched a step towards shore. In that moment, it did not matter  _ why _ he was being attacked, or where the merpeople had come from, or...anything, really, but making them  _ stop _ .

The merman on his back snarled, tail curling around Obi-Wan’s legs in a sudden vice. They fell, gravity having its way with them. Obi-Wan sucked in a breath, the pair of them slamming into the sand and surf, twisting as they fell. The man ended up pressed against his side, grappling at his arms, gripping tight, sinking claws  _ in _ . Obi-Wan beat at the merman’s head and shoulders, landing hard blows, lungs screaming--

Obi-Wan’s arm brushed one of the fishing lines stretched out into the water quite by accident. He wasn’t thinking when he reached for it, when he grabbed the line. There wasn’t anything but cold, sharp desperation to wrapping it around one hand, to taking the slicing pain; he barely felt it, anyway.

The man thrashed when Obi-Wan looped the line across his throat, but they were already locked together. The man had seen to that. Obi-Wan pulled, hard, feeling the line cutting into his hands from far away, locking his legs around the merman when he tried the jerk away, to cut off through the water.

The merman dragged them both along the sand, an abrasive scrape all down Obi-Wan’s shoulders. He ignored it, pulled harder, lungs screaming, aware of a hot rush all across his hands and forearms, aware of the man going limp.

Obi-Wan shoved the body away, jerkily, his hands a mess of agony all at once, burning in the salt water.

Everything burned, he registered, managing to get his knees on the sand, to shove up and get his head above water. He gulped for breath, and something - someone - else slammed into his back, hitting like a steel girder,  _ fuck _ , they were so fast and strong in the water.

Obi-Wan sprawled forward, a man stretched over his back, heavy weight pinning him, a hand braced on the back of Obi-Wan’s head, pressing his face into the wet, sucking sand. He held his breath, reaching back and - and scrambling at the man’s ribs, further back and--

The man screamed, an awful sound, when Obi-Wan dug fingers into his gills and tore. The merman reeled backwards and away. Obi-Wan pushed up, battered by another wave, eyes catching on the knife the man was waving.

A part of his mind insisted that he take the opportunity to retreat up the shore. The part of him that was currently handling control of his arms and legs decided otherwise. He lunged, instead, one hand reaching for the small fin running along the side of the man’s tail and--

It made a very satisfying sound, when he twisted his hand and snapped the bony structures. The man gave an awful cry, spines raising across his shoulder, trying to grapple Obi-Wan, bringing the knife around, again, and--

Obi-Wan grabbed him, bodily. He’d had plenty of experience hauling merfolk around. He put both arms around the man’s chest and pulled, standing completely, dragging the man a step up the beach and then another. He felt the blade slide along his arm, and then they were out of all but the edge of the crashing waves. Obi-Wan threw the merman to the sand and came down on top of him.

The man snarled up, teeth bared, and Obi-Wan punched him across the jaw. Obi-Wan grabbed for his arm when he tried to raise the knife again and--

And Obi-Wan had always been good at killing men.

There was no thought to desperately fighting for the knife, no time to think when the merman thrashed under him, shoving him over and pressing too close. He sank teeth into Obi-Wan’s arm in a hot rush of hurt. And he made a soft, surprised sound when Obi-Wan ignored the pain of it, took the knife, and buried it deep, deep inside the man’s chest.

Knife wounds didn’t kill right away. Obi-Wan knew that. The man gurgled against him. Obi-Wan twisted his wrist and, panting, shoved the body off to the side. 

He scrambled to his feet, knife in hand, expecting more movement from the sea. The waves crashed. Boga dragged herself out of the surf, sodden, her muzzle and chest dripping red. She shook herself, panting hard, as Obi-Wan stood over a dead merman.

Two more bodies floated in the waves, bobbing up and down.

“Oh,” Obi-Wan said, taking a stumbling step back, adrenaline burning inside his veins. “Oh,  _ fuck _ .”

He went to one knee in the sand, heart racing, looking dizzily down at himself. There was...quite a lot of blood. He wasn’t sure how much of it was his. He’d been….bitten and slashed. Stabbed and gouged with claws. He touched a wound along his ribs and hissed, looking up as Boga ambled over to him, butting her head against his chest, making urgent, high sounds in the back of her throat.

“Good girl,” he told her, panting, dropping to sit on the sand, just for a moment. “Good girl, Boga, you did so well.”

#

Shaak Ti and her delegation led Kote and his people down to the seafloor, the camp arranged there. She draped herself across a bench, arms wrapped over it, her tail stretched out across the sand beyond.

Kote mirrored the gestures; the posture left them both in poor position to reach for a weapon. He could recognize the wisdom of such an arrangement. Still, it left him itching down his spine, wondering--

“There were those in my land who believed we would never speak peaceably again,” Ti said, watching him with her dark eyes. It was harder to read her expression, courtesy of the tattoos across so much of her face. Kote supposed that was intentional. “Your father swore it to be so.”

“I’m not my father.” Kote had grown tired of reminding people of that early on, and the weariness had never faded completely. Ti inclined her head, just a little, eyes dropping in acknowledgement. He continued, “And the concerns of the present outweigh those of the past.”

They’d lost too many people already. He would not have any more of his people killed, if it could be stopped. He would not lose any more brothers, not if it could be helped. It was a fight they could, perhaps, win on their own.

But not without terrible casualties.

“Tell me, then, about these present concerns,” Ti said, and listened, while Kote spoke of the attackers who had come upon them so many months ago. She listened to his proposal regarding a reinstatement of the old treaties between their people. She listened, and the set of her fins, the little curl of her tail, said that she was not...unreceptive to the idea.

She said, when he finished, “There are those who will say that this problem is yours.”

Kote resisted the twitch of his own tail, holding onto his patience. He said, “People say many things. That doesn’t make them true. When our people fall, they will come for you next.”

“That is only a possibility,” Ti said, her tone infinitely calm.

“Some possibilities are more likely than others,” Kote told her, ignoring the itching in his arms. He’d engaged too often in displays of irritation, perhaps, in the past. But he’d-- he had vague memories, dizzy and confused with fever, of the spines sliding free while Obi-Wan tried to tend him, and Obi-Wan jerking backwards. 

Exercising restraint had become almost second nature while staying in the cabin. He  _ knew  _ he’d hurt Obi-Wan, once. Obi-Wan still had scars from Kote’s claws, on his forearms. He’d worked very hard to never repeat the event. “And it is your people who will die, if you ignore my offer.”

She made a sharp tetching sound, lifting her chin, and the sand around her stirred as she exhaled hard down along her gills. She said, after a long moment of consideration, “I am inclined to believe you. After all, it must be serious, for you to come to us.”

Kote’s jaw ached. He said, forcing the tension out, “Yes.”

And she shifted, again, pushing away from the meeting stone. “I will consider. Wait here.”

Hours passed while he waited, while she conferred with her own people. He wondered if she even had the power to make such a decision. He wondered, with an ache, if the assistance would be enough to win them the war.

#

Obi-Wan knew, from a distance, that he could not just sit, bleeding, on the sand. But it took time to marshal the energy to stand again. He was shivering, but set that aside. He rolled the man he’d stabbed over onto his back and looked at him.

He had a narrow face, damaged by the blows Obi-Wan had landed. His hair was trimmed short, dark and curled. His tail and the scales scattered across his body were reddish. Obi-Wan stared at him, gut clenched tight, and then waded out into the water for the other bodies.

The other merman he’d killed was caught in the fishing line. Obi-Wan had cut through skin, through--

Obi-Wan cut the line, instead of trying to untangle it. He pulled the body to shore and spread it out, taking in the greenish tail, the unfamiliar face, the empty eyes. There were no bite marks on either man, which meant that the third had been the one who Boga savaged.

Obi-Wan looked at the last body, only a part of the tail was visible above the water. He knew the other two were dead. He felt less sure about the third one and had a feeling he lacked the energy for another fight with one of the merfolk.

He turned and spat - bloody - down onto the sand and then limped up the beach and to his cabin. His head felt quiet. Calm. His hands were still steady as he pushed aside his pillow and grabbed his 45. 

The merfolk were stronger than him, he thought. They could breathe under the water. And they were so naturally sharp-edged. He checked the clip of the gun, set the safety, and kept a grip on it, all the way back down to the beach.

The third merman was still floating in the surf when Obi-Wan got back. Obi-Wan kept his sidearm away from the water and waded out to the body. The merman was tangled up in some of his other fishing lines, bleeding heavily and clumsily trying to get free.

Obi-Wan stared at him for a moment, considering.

Merfolk had come and tried to kill him.

He didn’t understand  _ why _ . Or even - even  _ how _ .

There was only one merman who even knew he existed and--

Obi-Wan blinked, eyes burning, something in his chest tearing in half. He’d suspected that Cody would never return for him, promises or not. But he had not imagined that Cody would...would send people to kill him.

He wondered if Cody worried that Obi-Wan would reveal the existence of the merfolk. If he’d just - just been ashamed of what they’d done. If--

Obi-Wan set aside the thoughts. After all, he didn’t have to  _ wonder _ . He drew in a breath and bent, curled an arm around the merman’s tail - far from the spines that could rise from skin - and bodily dragged him up and out of the water, bringing the lines along.

Obi-Wan dropped the man onto the sand, where he hissed and snarled, making to lunge forward even as Boga moved in, head down, hackles up, a growling snarl in her throat. The merman went still, eyes wide, looking at the dog.

He was a sorry sight, really, bleeding all over the sand. Boga had not been gentle with him. It was hard to reconcile the damage done to him with Boga, who was so sweet and soft, who would put her giant head in Obi-Wan’s lap and fall asleep as he scratched behind her ears. All of her teeth were showing at the moment, as the merman pushed back across the sand, spines raised, unable to put pressure on his wounds or to lash out, caught in the line.

Obi-Wan stared at him, and felt very still and very cold, inside. He murmured to Boga, a faint order to sit, and she did, though she continued to growl, deep inside her broad chest.

Obi-Wan took a step closer to the merman and asked, looking for the words in Mando’a, “Who are you?”

The merman jerked, tensing all over, dark eyes snapping to meet Obi-Wan’s gaze. An expression of horror and disgust crossed his face. He thrashed harder, and Obi-Wan sighed, watching the fishing line cut into skin.

He stepped forward, over the merman, and bent. Obi-Wan grabbed a handful of the lines tangled over the man’s chest and pushed, forcing the man flat onto the sand. He had tattoos, as well, though not nearly so many as Cody, who had also lain here, bleeding on the beach, hurt and--

Obi-Wan gritted his teeth, shoving away memories that were massively unhelpful at the moment. He rasped, his voice rough, “Answering my questions, I’m letting you go.” It was, he knew, the only thing he had to offer as an incentive.

He could, perhaps, try other means to get the information he wanted, but the very thought left him with nausea crawling up the back of his throat. He - he’d thought his days of hurting people were over, but he’d killed--

The merman under his hand tried to twist, and Obi-Wan put more pressure on him, automatically, listening to him make a whistling, agonized sound. “Telling me how - how here,” Obi-Wan snapped, “telling me, now.”

“You’ll kill me anyway,” the man gasped out, “like the others.”

Obi-Wan flinched, pushed the noisy storm inside his bones to the side. “No,” he said, “letting you go. I’m promising.” The man opened his mouth again, sneering, and Boga shifted up, her growl getting deeper. Obi-Wan watched the man’s eyes go white, all the way around; he tried to flinch against the sand. “Why coming here? Telling me.”

The man kept staring at Boga, but he snapped, “We came here for you.” He spat something else, a word that Obi-Wan didn’t know. He could guess at the meaning. He knew a slur when he heard it.

Obi-Wan swallowed, his throat tight and his gut a rock. He hadn’t expected a different answer. They’d seemed...singularly determined to kill him. His wounds throbbed, but it was a far-away kind of pain, a waiting type of agony. “Why?” he demanded. 

The merman snarled, looking up at him, briefly, “Humans are not to know of us. It is  _ anathema _ . The King may have lost his senses, but  _ we  _ have not. You are a  _ monster _ .” He twisted and then subsided with a groan, panting, “Look at what you’ve done.”

Obi-Wan knew perfectly well what he’d done. He didn’t need the reminder or the achingly sharp realization that his hands were still steady. They were  _ always  _ steady when he fought, he didn’t know  _ why _ , what was wrong with him that made him--

It wasn’t important. He shook the thoughts aside, and asked, “Cody - the King - he does not sending you?” The merman snorted, an ugly, gurgling sound. Obi-Wan stared down at him, at the way his fins moved, and read the ‘no’ that went unspoken, that didn’t  _ need _ spoken. Mando’a was a very physical language. Something relaxed, all at once, in Obi-Wan’s chest. He wanted to believe it, wanted to accept that Cody hadn’t wanted him killed. He swallowed and demanded, “How are you to finding me, then?”

“I don’t have to--”

“I can leaving you,” Obi-Wan cut in, sharp, knowing, even as he said it that he couldn’t, that he  _ wouldn’t _ . But the merman already thought he was a monster. Surely that assumption would work in his favor. “Here to sand. Most all away from water. Birds come. Or I can putting you to water. You are choosing. Now.”

The man stared up at him, eyes wide and mouth twisting, before he looked to the side and gasped, “The King sent one of his  _ brothers  _ to look after you. The boy was easy enough to follow and overpower.”

Obi-Wan took a breath and held it, a jolt of electricity arching down his spine. Cody had spoken of his brothers so fondly, with such affection. He asked, his voice coming from far away, flat and cold, “Where is boy? Is hurt? Is--is alright?”

The merman looked up, baring his teeth, and said, “He’s with the others, and, if he’s listened, he’s just fine.”

Obi-Wan considered the odds that any brother of Cody’s had listened to anything anyone told him. He swore and pushed to his feet. Cody had - had not sent anyone to kill him. Instead, he’d apparently sent one of his  _ brothers _ , and now the boy was in danger, had been….captured, perhaps, by people more than willing to take a life and--

Obi-Wan bent, after a moment, and grabbed the merman’s tail, dragging him across the sand. “What are you doing?” the man cried, sharply, “you promised to let me go!”

“I’m knowing,” Obi-Wan said, moving towards the little boat nestled against the shore. “First, you are taking me to boy. Now.”

#

Hauling the merman into the boat was less than pleasant, but he settled, eventually, in the bottom of the little craft. Obi-Wan pushed the boat out into the waves and then climbed in himself, ignoring Boga where she barked and fretted along the shore. There was definitely no room for three of them in the little craft.

The merman seemed content enough to direct Obi-Wan, once they got out onto the water. He looked smug, content.

But, then again, he’d said there were  _ others _ out there with Cody’s brother. Perhaps he was excited to get reinforcements. Obi-Wan ignored that dread. He couldn’t very well  _ leave  _ the boy to whatever they planned.

And so he rowed them out across the swell of the sea, through the little cove, towards the place where the reef broke, allowing in the sea. “They’re down there,” the merman said, hunched awkwardly against the bow, bleeding all over the bottom of the boat. “For all the good it’ll do you.”

Obi-Wan flashed him a smile - more teeth than anything - and shifted. He’d had time to think during the trip out. He said, “You make - making call to them. Now.”

The man blinked over at him and snorted. “You  _ want  _ me to tell them you’re here?”

“Yes.” Obi-Wan shifted, bracing one knee on the bench across the boat, settling the paddles down inside, where they would not get lost. He drew the 45 from the back of his waistband. He wondered, distantly, if the merman had any idea what it  _ did _ . “Call now.” 

The man scoffed, fins flaring as best they could, and then leaned his head back, and called, something loud and sharp. Obi-Wan breathed in and breathed out, waiting, scanning the water, and felt his head get quiet when there was movement beneath the surface. 

A woman burst through the surface, a moment later, a long spear in one hand. She was joined by another man. Obi-Wan looked at them and said, “I am wanting for boy, I am wanting only--”

The woman snarled at him, snapping a word he didn’t know, and reaching for the boat. She put a hand on the side, muscles shifting in her arm and shoulder as she pushed, thrusting the spear towards him and--

Obi-Wan hadn’t fired a gun, not since the war ended. It was strange, how well he remembered the process. He didn’t even have to think about it, but, then, he never had. And there were no worries about his aim degrading over time.

It was very hard to miss someone close enough to touch.

The woman went over backwards, red spreading out in the water where she’d fallen. The man in the boat cried out, sharp, horrified. A flash of movement made Obi-Wan turn, at the last second, towards the other man who had risen from the water and stabbed something at Obi-Wan, apparently.

The weapon scraped along his ribs, instead of puncturing his back. Obi-Wan reached for it, automatically, hand slipping on the wet shaft, the man trying to yank it back and--

The second gunshot rang in Obi-Wan’s ears. He stood in the boat, in the aftermath, watching the water stain crimson, breathing raggedly. He asked, without looking over his shoulder, “More? Are being--more?”

The merman in the boat didn’t answer. Obi-Wan looked over at him and found him staring, eyes wide, breath shallow. “More?” he demanded. “More with boy?”

The man shook his head, breathing shallow and ragged. He hissed something, words Obi-Wan didn’t know, exactly, but… Some tones translated, perhaps, across different languages. 

“He is - is in water?” Obi-Wan asked, and the man said nothing, turning his face away. “Fine,” Obi-Wan said, his mind working too fast, jumping from one thing to the next without waiting for him to catch up. He’d not felt that way in so long. Not since--

“You to waiting here,” Obi-Wan said. “I am letting you go, after boy.”

He frowned over at the man and then down at his sidearm. Getting it wet would be a nightmare and a half. It wouldn’t work properly, afterwards, not until he’d dried and cleaned it. But leaving it with the merman, even if the man were restrained…

Obi-Wan swore and shoved it into the lobster pot. He reached, afterwards, for the little filleting knife he kept with his fishing supplies. He looked over the edge of the boat, drawing in a few deep breaths, bracing for the cold embrace of the water, the way the salt would burn the wounds scattered all across his body.

And then, clumsily, he jumped over the side.

#

Hitting the water sent a shock through Obi-Wan’s body, but he was grown used to the cold embrace of it. He wasn’t used to swimming  _ down _ , but the general concept was the same as swimming along the surface. He kicked his legs and swept forward with his arms, knife held in one hand.

The salt burned his wounds, and he didn’t know what he was looking for, really, besides--

A flash of gold, down below.

He surfaced again, breaking through the top of the water and dragging in a deep breath. And when he dove again, he dove with purpose, aiming for the gold. It resolved into a long tail, into a young man, staring up at him with a stunned look as he approached.

Obi-Wan’s lungs were burning by the time he reached the boy, and his ears  _ hurt _ . He ignored it. The boy was bleeding, here and there. And someone - the other merfolk - had tied him to a hunk of the coral. 

Obi-Wan kicked hard; the water felt like it was fighting against him. He wished he had gills, wished that he could take a breath, wished he could say something encouraging to the boy; really, he was almost a man.

But he couldn’t, he could only hope that the boy wouldn’t attack him, wouldn’t take his presence amiss. Obi-Wan smiled, as best he could, grabbing the coral and pulling himself closer, reaching for the ties around the boy’s wrists, slicing at them.

He didn’t recognize the material. It didn’t appear to be rope. It was solid, despite its relative thinness. It reminded him of leather, he thought, vaguely, as his lungs burned. The boy squirmed around, tugging against the bonds, and then shouted, yellowish light suddenly blaring out of him.

Obi-Wan jerked his head up, looking over in time to catch sight of a flash of movement. He shoved down with the knife, automatically, felt something give, and then pushed away, more concerned with the merwoman charging him and the long weapon that she held.

He managed to grab the spear as she shoved it forward, pushing it out to the side, and then she was on him; they were  _ so fast in the water _ . 

There was no way to brace against the blow. She hit his chest and shoved him back, into the rough-edged coral. It drove the breath from him; he watched the bubbles escape, lungs screaming. He lost his grip on the knife. She wrenched at the spear and there was a terrible strength in her, supported by the fact that she could breathe and he could not.

She tried to shove back from him, but he managed to get his legs around her tail, squeezing as she made a ragged, shrill sound, clawing down across his ribs, hand cutting towards his gut--

Obi-Wan kept his grip on the spear as best he could, flailing his free hand out for the knife sinking through the water. Something kicked over in his gut as his fingers closed around the handle. There was no thought to bringing it up, to sinking the blade in to her neck, to shoving and pushing her body back, his lungs  _ burning _ .

There were spots all over his vision, great and dark, swimming back and forwards.

He was aware of far away pain, but he couldn’t connect to it. He pushed away from the coral, dizzy. The boy tied to the coral was jerking against what remained of the cord. Obi-Wan grabbed him, pulled the cord tight, and brought the blade down.

There was relief, when the rope parted. Obi-Wan kept his grip on the boy and kicked, needing, with every ounce of his being, to reach the surface. He realized, a second later, that it was too far away. His entire chest was afire, everything screaming at him to breathe, to suck in the water, to fill his aching lungs with  _ something _ .

The spots were getting worse, he noted, something cold sliding down his spine. He’d thought about drowning so many times. He felt no fear at its approach. And he’d saved Cody’s brother, so, really, he had no more reason not to--

The boy grabbed his arm, gripping tight, and Obi-Wan had a sensation of movement as his arm caught at his shoulder, hard. And then there was air all across his face, sweet and bright. He gasped, choking and coughing and gulping at the air, his heart banging desperately at his ribs.

He reached out, holding onto the boy who was - at that moment - supporting him in the water, staring at him with wide, stunned eyes. “You are alright?” Obi-Wan managed to croak out, looking across at him, seeing Cody in the boy’s eyes, in the line of his jaw.

The boy gaped at him, and said, “You  _ must  _ be Cody’s human.”

The words slid down into Obi-Wan’s chest with a blossom of warmth. He felt his mouth curve up in the corners, turning into a ragged, punchy smile. “Coming here,” he said. “I am having boat. I am helping you, is alright.”

#

The boat had drifted, a bit, in his time under the water. It wasn’t hard to catch it with the boy’s help. He called himself Eyayah and he dragged Obi-Wan through the water, bringing them quickly to the edge of the boat.

Obi-Wan gripped the edge and, with a gasp, managed to pull himself up and over the side. It was not, somehow, much of a surprise to find that the other merman was gone, leaving behind nothing but bloody smears. He looked over at Eyayah, still in the water, and asked, “You are most happier there?”

Eyayah raised an eyebrow, still staring, and said, “Yes, I’m happier in the water.”

“But hurt,” Obi-Wan said, becoming aware of how cold he was, as the adrenaline started to crash out of his blood. He reached over, gesturing at Eyayah’s arm. There was a wound across his bicep and there were bruises across his face.

Eyayah frowned at him and said, “You think  _ I’m  _ hurt?”

Obi-Wan looked down at himself. There was...blood everywhere. He wasn’t quite feeling the wounds, yet. The pain felt two steps away. “Looking most worse,” he said, and Eyayah shook his head. “Go for shore, please, I am helping you.”

Eyayah grumbled something under his breath, but helped drag the ship back to the shore as Obi-Wan paddled, his arms and shoulders protesting each movement. Obi-Wan drifted, a bit, as they carved their way through the sea. He blinked, trying to focus as the boat ran up onto the shore, Boga rushing up, tail wagging, mouth open.

“It’s fine, girl,” Obi-Wan said, climbing out and reaching down to rub at her head, while she fussed and whined. “Hold on,” he said, turning away from her again and wading out into the water. He looked at Eyayah and said, “I am -- there is -- is house? Taking you for house? For helping?”

He could, he supposed, bring supplies down to the water, if it made Eyayah more comfortable. He wasn’t nearly so hurt as Cody had been, when Obi-Wan rescued him. 

But Eyayah raised both eyebrows and said, “Wait, your house? Where Cody stayed?” And, when Obi-Wan nodded, he said, “Yes, I’d like to go and see that.”

Obi-Wan shrugged and braced himself. He said, “I am picking you up for help, yes?”

Eyayah gripped at Obi-Wan’s shoulders, when Obi-Wan lifted him and bore him out of the water. Boga ran up, sniffing at his tail, and Obi-Wan said, “Leave him alone, he’s not Cody.” 

She bounced along, tail wagging, and Eyayah tightened his grip, sucking in a sharp breath. Obi-Wan followed his gaze, found him staring at the two dead men spread out across the sand. “Sorry,” Obi-Wan said, ignoring the pain all down his back and arms, “they - they attacking me. Before.”

“And you fought them,” Eyayah said, with a sharp little sound, “like you fought Juil, down below.”

“Not wanting for hurting them,” Obi-Wan assured him, and, indeed, the knowledge of what he’d done kept trying to crawl up out of his gut. He hadn’t wanted to hurt anyone, never again in his life. It frightened him, horrified him, that he seemed so good at killing. “Not much more far,” he added, trying to focus on the real weight of Eyayah in his arms.

Eyayah was hurt. He worked to remember that, nudging the door open with a shoulder and stepping through. Eyayah was slighter than Cody, not as solidly built, but perhaps he’d yet grow into his shoulders. He had the lankiness that Obi-Wan associated with boys in their late teens, not quite filled out, yet.

Anakin had looked like that, when Obi-Wan first met him and--

Obi-Wan bit the side of his tongue, hard, the spark of pain jerking him back into his bones. He lowered Eyayah into the tub and straightened, working to suppress the groan in his chest. He hurt in...so many places. But that was fine. He shook his head, moving to gather supplies, aware that Eyayah was staring around the cabin.

“This is where Cody stayed?” Eyayah asked, as Obi-Wan returned, pulling the chair over and spreading supplies across it, shooing Boga away when she tried to shove her nose against Eyayah’s head.

“Yes,” Obi-Wan said, wincing a little as he looked around. “Giving arm to me, please.”

Eyayah looked over at him and blinked. He said, with a shift of his tail that Obi-Wan  _ knew  _ meant he wasn’t pleased. “I can wait,” he said, “it’s just a cut. You should -- you’re hurt much worse.”

Obi-Wan glanced down at himself and shook his head. “Is not most bad,” he said. “Arm. Please.”

Eyayah opened his mouth and then shifted his arm. Obi-Wan set to cleaning the wound; it really wasn’t that severe. It needed, perhaps, a few stitches and nothing more. He asked, as he worked, “What is happening? To you?”

Eyayah shifted a little, before settling when Obi-Wan tightened his grip. He said, head leaned back against the tub, and for a second, out of the corner of Obi-Wan’s eyes, he looked so much like Cody that it hurt. His voice wasn’t Cody’s, though, when he said, “Cody--” except, Obi-Wan noticed, his head a little clearer with each breath, that Eyayah was not  _ quite  _ saying Cody. He was saying something else, close, but not the same. “--sent me, to, well. To check on you. He gave me a present for you, as well, but they took it. I don’t know what they did with it.”

Obi-Wan went still, needle between his fingers, turning to stare at Eyayah, who was already watching him. He asked, softly, “He did?”

Eyayah inclined his head, gaze still roving across Obi-Wan’s face. “He did. He, well, he told me to tell you that he was going to keep his promises.” Obi-Wan blinked, trying to clear the sudden blur from his eyes, looking away and sucking in a breath, because he’d thought--

He shook the thoughts away, desperately, and cleared his throat. He asked, “But, the others? They are--Cody was not sending them?”

Eyayah hissed, just a little, in the back of his throat. “No,” he all but spat the word. “No, there are… Some people were upset, when Kote--” that seemed closer to what he was saying, Obi-Wan thought. “--told us all about you. We’re not supposed to have dealings with humans. So, so some people got angry, I guess. They followed me and - and when I got them close enough…” He trailed off, shoulders slumping miserably. “They grabbed me. I couldn’t get away.”

He looked to the side, mouth pressing thin.

Obi-Wan set the last stitch in and sighed, leaning back. “Six of them,” he said, quietly. “One of you.”

“I should have done better,” Eyayah said, frown getting deeper. He cast Obi-Wan a look. “ _ You  _ fought them. _ All _ of them.”

Obi-Wan shrugged, standing up. “I am good for fighting.” And he quite thought they’d underestimated him. They hadn’t come in great force, they hadn’t even approached him all at once. They hadn’t expected him to put up a fight. He sighed, looking at the tub, and added, “I am going for getting water.”

“What?” Eyayah said, shifting in the tub and then reaching out, grabbing onto his arm. “No, you’re - were you struck on the head? You’re bleeding, everywhere.”

Obi-Wan blinked over at him. “You will drying up.”

“I’ll live,” Eyayah said, frowning. “Please. I can help you.”

“No,” Obi-Wan said, shaking his head, but he did settle. He was, indeed, getting blood everywhere. And the adrenaline was fully crashing out of his blood. His hands were starting to shake, he noticed, from a distance, as he started wiping away some of the blood, looking for the wounds below. “Telling me, how is Cody?” He grimaced, trying to focus. “ _ Kote _ . He is being alright?”

Eyayah was quiet, for a moment. Long enough for Obi-Wan to look over at him, unable to read the look on his face. Eventually, Eyayah said, “Yes, he’s doing well. He’s...trying to arrange a treaty.” And he spoke of what he knew, of Cody’s return, while Obi-Wan patched himself back together.

He’d taken more wounds than he realized; there were gouges along his arms and down his sides, a deep bite on one shoulder. He’d been stabbed, he realized, eventually, and cleaned the wound as best he could.

There was little he could do about the damage across his back and shoulders, the wounds left by the impact with the coral. The sand had abraded him, too, in countless places. And his chest hurt, somewhere deep inside. 

But the information about Cody, about his safe return and his family’s relief, was so good to hear, even if Obi-Wan could not determine  _ why  _ Cody would still insist on keeping his promise after… after finally returning home. He cleared his throat, as he pulled some flayed skin across his ribs, holding it into place, and said, “Kote is knowing - knowing he does not - knowing…” He cut off, swearing, trying to find the words he needed. “Knowing he can stay? Stay home?”

Eyayah made a sharp little sound, and then said, “He’s the King. He does what he wants to do.”

The words made Obi-Wan shiver. He hummed, watching the needle slide into his skin. He said, “I am getting water soon. You are hungry?”

“That’s…” Eyayah shifted around in the tub. “I can get food, don’t worry. And I...really, I can’t stay.” Obi-Wan blinked over at him, string tugging on his skin. “I have to tell Kote what happened. He needs to know that someone tried to kill you.” His eyes hardened, his jaw tightening when he said, “He’ll be….very angry.” Obi-Wan wondered about that. He could not recall, really, seeing Cody angry. 

“But danger,” Obi-Wan said, quietly. “Danger for you.”

“I know to look out, now,” Eyayah said, frowning. “And I’m very fast. And not hurt, really.” He glanced at his arm. “You patched me up.” 

Obi-Wan pressed his lips together. He didn’t  _ like  _ the idea of Eyayah venturing out into the water with the other merman out there, somewhere, even if the man had been thoroughly tangled in fishing line. He could have gotten free. He could have gotten a weapon….

Still. The other merman was badly hurt. Boga had savaged him. Obi-Wan sighed and nodded. He finished his work and trimmed the string. “Alright,” he said, “you are most sure?”

And he ignored all the places that pulled and stung, when he lifted Eyayah out of the tub, once more, and carried him back to the shore. It ached, inside his chest, watching another merman swim off, though Eyayah popped up and waved, once, before diving under the water and disappearing.

#

Sitting on the sand only made sense, after Eyayah left. Exhaustion crashed through Obi-Wan, no longer with any duties or obligations to shore it away. He pulled his knees up and draped his arms across them, aware of the pain throbbing through his entire body. The parts of him that weren’t cut or flayed were bruised.

He dropped his head onto his arms and took shallow, gasping breaths.

He’d kept the shaking at bay as long as he could; it came for him with a vengeance, with hungry teeth, greedy to dig into him. Images, in terrible clarity, bounced and echoed inside his head, from one side to the other, the press of water all around him, claws digging into his flesh, a knife in his hand and dead eyes looking up at him, and--

He lurched to the side and retched, there on the beach, battered hands sinking into the sand, his body and mind exacting the toll for what he’d done.

Boga bumped into him, licking at his shoulders and snuffling against his hair and, eventually, he found the strength to curl an arm around her. The sun was going down, sinking against the horizon. His face felt hot and tight and his chest hurt, but he managed to push to his feet.

The two bodies were still on the shore. Boga had kept the birds away, which was a small blessing.

Obi-Wan limped over to look at them. His body was going stiff and unyielding, wounds and strain working together. He stared down at the bodies. He didn’t really….know what to do with them. Cody had told him a bit about what the merfolk did with their dead, but Obi-Wan had no way to accomplish that ritual. 

He couldn’t leave them on the sand. They’d be feasted on in the night. The birds and the crabs, the other scavengers, would pick at them. The birds would--

\-- _ tear into flesh, into any soft piece they could find and so often that was the face, the only bits of skin not covered by layers of clothing, and Obi-Wan-- _

\--turned his face to the side, breathing through the pressure, the memories. Boga nudged his hip, and he leaned some of his weight against her. He had to focus. He couldn’t leave them. It was a….sickening idea. And - and Cody’s people didn’t want humans to know about them.

Two bodies would be very incriminating evidence of their existence. The sand, he knew, wouldn’t bury anything for long. It blew and moved and shifted. He stood, staring down at them, and swallowed. “Alright,” he said, panting, “I have an idea.” 

It took a terrible effort to pull both of the bodies into his little boat. He retrieved his 45 from the lobster pot with shaking hands and tucked it into the back of his slacks. He thought he ought to keep it with him, going forward, though not through his current activities. 

Obi-Wan limped his way back to the cabin and left the gun inside. He went around to his motorcycle. The taste of gasoline was foul and terrible when he started the syphon from the tank, emptying the fuel into a bucket.

He carried it back to the boat, careful not to slosh any of it out. 

Boga watched him, making urgent, unhappy noises as he poured the liquid over the bodies and then limped off across the sand, gathering as much driftwood as he possibly could. He piled it in around them and then stood, for a moment, shivering on the sand. The moon was high and bright, the wind cutting in off of the ocean was cold and biting.

The water was even colder when Obi-Wan slid in, pushing the boat along, fighting the waves and the current. He gasped for breath, his body protesting each movement as he swam out as far as he felt he could go. 

He pulled himself up, hooking his arms over the side, the waves bobbing him up and down, and reached for the matches he’d left on the seat.

The fire, at least, caught quickly. Obi-Wan pushed away from the boat as the flames spread, rising up into the air. He kicked the boat, trying to push it further out into the sea. The current felt strong, tugging at him. He hoped, vaguely, that it would carry the boat far, far away.

He panted, bobbing in the water, and considered the chill creeping through his limbs. He’d dragged the boat out very far. And it was such a long way back. He hurt and he was cold and exhausted and….

He looked up into the endless sky, the stars so clear and bright. He was supposed to have written a letter, he thought, bleary. He’d promised to - to do something. Every night. The thought sunk claws into his head, even as his gaze slipped from one star to the next, as he slurred, skyward, “I missed you. I missed you, ah, I did. I--”

Obi-Wan swallowed. There was a burn of warmth down either side of his face, the only part of him that felt anything but stunningly cold. He wetted his lips, tasting salt on them.

Cody’s people were angry about him. Angry that Cody wanted anything to do with him. Eyayah would go back and tell him. And Cody would see, would have to, that he could not return. Or, if he did, that it would only be to say goodbye, properly. Forever. “It’s better,” he said, words he’d written, over and over, before burning them. “I know you will understand.”

And even if it had not been better for Cody that he float out on the ocean, until the cold ate all the way into him, until he lacked even the energy to move his arms and legs… He was so tired. Shore was so far away. And….Luke kept coming out. He’d return, likely in no more than a few mornings. Boga liked Luke. He would--

“I’m sorry,” Obi-Wan whispered to the stars, an echo of words only put on paper before. “I hope that you are happy. Please do not worry, I--”

He’d reached almost the end of the message he usually tried to convey. But he never finished the letters. It was important that he not finish them, though he could not recall why, out beneath the stars, embraced by the sea. He’d promised to leave them incomplete, perhaps?

He hesitated, words on his lips, curled against the tip of his tongue, and swallowed them back, pushing away from the slow downward spiral of his thoughts. He could not remain out on the sea, no matter how….peaceful it seemed. He drew in a breath, and an unexpectedly large wave rolled through the sea, lifting him. It seemed too early for the tide to be going in, but the water shoved him, just a little, shoreward. Perhaps it was some kind of strange current. He knew so little of the ocean, still.

He blinked, shaking himself from the heavy weight in his head, the call of the cold and the silence. 

Something settled inside him, cold and hard. Exhaustion ate at him, but he pushed it aside. He closed his eyes, marshalled the dregs of strength, and turned back to the dark, distant edge of the shore, the water pushing him along.

His mind went away, at some point. There was nothing but the endless water and the pain and then, shockingly, a warm, furry body pressed against his, teeth closing so careful around his arm, tugging and dragging him the last few feet, up onto the beach.

Obi-Wan sprawled out onto the sand, no more strength left in him, and stared up at the sky, identifying constellations automatically, even as they blurred and were obscured by the dark spots across his vision.

And, between one rasp for breath and the next, he slept.

#

Shaak Ti made Kote wait; or, perhaps it was better to say that she took her time considering his offer. By the time she returned, exhaustion was starting to crawl up the back of his head. Her people had, at least, provided sustenance during the wait. He shifted to watch her approach, trying to read the set of her fins and the look on her face, even obscured by tattoos.

She gestured at the stone where they’d rested before, and he settled against it, biting back an impatient sound. She settled her tail back across the sand and said, quietly, “We will have an accord, your people and mine.”

Relief settled all down Kote’s spine and into his gut, where the bite from the shark still ached, sometimes. “You can agree to such an accord?” he asked, because there was not enough information about the Togruta to be had, really.

The enmity between their peoples had stretched too long.

She inclined her head, spreading one arm out to the side. “I do,” she said, “my sister stands as Empress and she will hold to my decision. It is only settling the details that remains to us.”

Kote smothered a grimace. It would have been more pleasant to request that she come to the capital, speak to the council to settle such matters. They could dig through the issue in great depth, he was sure. 

But there was not the time for that. Or, at least, Kote would not waste the time for it. Not if it could be resolved between them, not if he could take steps to get assistance more quickly. And so the next hours were full of more discussions, arguments, quibbles about definitions and specifics.

“My sister,” Ti said, eventually, tilting her head to one side, “my people, will want more than words to hold a treaty.”

Kote had not expected less. He twitched and asked, “What would be sufficient insurance, then?”

Ti regarded him with her dark eyes, mouth quirking up as she said, “A marriage is traditional. I was told to make you an offer directly, if we got this far. But--” she raised a hand when he stiffened, a refusal already on his lips, and continued “--we have not forgotten all of your ways. I see you are not available.” She gestured towards his chest. “My congratulations on the discovery of your heart. We had not had word that you’d married.”

Kote relaxed, a bit, and said, “It happened only recently.”

She hummed, the noise vibrating through the water. “You have brothers,” she said, tone calm and even. “I assume they are not all wedded?”

Kote’s mouth twitched, again. “You assume correctly,” he said, wondering if he would have to make such a match there, with the dark pressed so close all around, thinking of Rex, somewhere, likely fighting or exhausted after a battle and--

“Good,” Ti said. “I would meet with them, before making a decision. But I will have your word, here and now, that we will have an accord, between your family and mine. An end to the bad blood between us.”

“Help me protect both our peoples,” Kote said, setting aside his concerns about a marriage and his brothers for the moment, “and we will all leave the past in the past.”

She stared at him for a long, long moment before inclining her head. She stretched an arm out towards him, fingers extended, and he gripped her forearm. He felt the tips of her nails sink into his skin as his sank into hers, five branding marks, deep enough to seal the accord between them.

“Return to your people,” she said. “And I shall gather mine.” She turned, gesturing to the members of the delegation gathered behind her. A half-dozen of them approached, all of them armed and wearing the white and blue stripes that marked them as warriors.

“I send this delegation with you,” Ti said, “to prove that I hold to my word.”

The knot of tension in Kote’s gut eased a little more. He nodded, wondering if they were to serve as hostages, as collateral. He lifted his own hand and ordered a few of his people to accompany Ti. She seemed pleased enough with the decision.

He was left, as she swam away, with a promise and with six warriors. 

He hoped, turning aside, that the promised forces would be enough.

There was only one way to find out. He welcomed the warriors, ignoring the discomfort he saw on their faces and the faces of his people, and turned them all for home. They could make some of the trip before resting. They had, after all, so far to go.

Perhaps, he thought, the trip would go more quickly. They had hope buoying them along, after all, where before there had only been dread and doubt. Kote shook those thoughts aside and went home, ignoring the nagging ache in his chest that said it was not the only home his heart desired.

#

Obi-Wan woke with Boga curled against his back and sand blown all across his skin. He rose, groaning, and managed to wade out into the water to get off the majority of the sand. He hurt, all over, a solid throb of misery from his head to his feet.

It took a long time, limping, to make it back to his cabin, and longer, after that, to tend to all his injuries again. The water had undone all his bandages and he’d torn more than a few of the stitches loose.

He caught a look at himself in the mirror and grimaced. He looked filthy and battered, hair a tangled mess and face all turning different colors. Boga whined, nudging at him, and he fed her before curling up on his bed, too tired even to pull the blankets over his body.

The injuries had not miraculously dissolved by the time he woke again. They did not magically dissolve over the coming days, but, at least, some of the stiffness slowly went away. He could not go down to the water to swim. He could barely lift his arms to his shoulders for the first few days.

Recovery went slowly, but he  _ was  _ recovering, some of the bruises fading to greens and yellows, by the time someone knocked on the door to the cabin.

Obi-Wan froze in the act of making himself some breakfast. His ribs squeezed, all at once, around his lungs and his pulse jumped in his veins. He looked, automatically, at the tub, but Cody was not there. There was no risk to Cody, no matter who happened to be outside the door.

Obi-Wan hesitated for a moment, wondering if the person might go away, but smoke had to be rising from the stove pipe outside the cabin. And, anyway, the windows were open. He swore, softly, took the pot off the stove, and limped over to the door, opening it a crack.

It was, somehow, not much of a surprise to find Luke on the other side.

Luke was smiling, when Obi-Wan opened the door, even bouncing a bit on the balls of his feet. The smile fell away almost immediately and his eyes went wide. He blurted, before Obi-Wan could get out a greeting, “Oh, shit, what happened to you?”

Obi-Wan grimaced. He’d hoped the bruising on his face had gone down enough to pass without comment. Evidently not. “Oh,” he said, stepping back when Luke pushed at the door, sliding into the cabin without a by-your-leave and staring at him. He was grateful his shirt and slacks covered the worst of the damage. “Nothing really. I was…” He hadn’t thought of a lie, but managed one after a moment, “In an accident. In my boat. It sank, actually, and…” He gestured at his face.

Luke looked at him for a beat, face getting splotchy, and then shook his head, roughly. “Who did this?” he demanded, a moment later. He’d brought something with him, magazines or papers, and dropped them hurriedly on Obi-Wan’s table, moving jerkily.

Obi-Wan blinked at him. “I told you, my boat--”

“Your boat didn’t punch you,” Luke cut in, frowning up at him. “I know what a beating looks like, I’m not an idiot.”

Obi-Wan stared, momentarily stunned by the boy’s ferocity and the sudden wet shine of his eyes as he looked to the side, scowling. “Was it guys from town? Was it because - because you’re…” Luke grimaced and waved a hand a little. “You know. Queer.”

Obi-Wan took a step back and only realized when his shoulders bumped against the door. He hadn’t realized anyone in town  _ knew _ , but he should have, probably. Other people had noticed before, after all, like they could read it in him, see the ways he was different and wrong and--

He said, quietly, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“It’s - I heard in the store. Rick said he was out this way a while ago, weeks, maybe, and heard you. You and another man. Talking and - and such. But couldn’t find you, anywhere.”

Obi-Wan reached back and braced a hand on the wall, torn between clutching anxiety and sick relief. If someone  _ had  _ found him and Cody, if they’d wandered far enough from the road to find the tide pools, if they’d--

Boga bumped into him, wedging her huge head up under his hand, snuffling at his hip. Obi-Wan clenched fingers into her fur, trying to recall how to breathe easily. He said, “That’s not - it must have been--”

“It’s alright,” Luke said, taking a step towards him, ignoring it when Obi-Wan flinched. “I - I’m not gonna -- I’ve -- I won’t tell anyone. I’m... “ He stained red, all over his face. “I’m - just. I’ll say your boat sank, if anyone asks.”

Obi-Wan blinked across at him, breathing raggedly. He rasped, through his too-tight throat, “It  _ did  _ sink.” He’d lit it on fire, first, but he didn’t think that piece of information was especially relevant to the discussion.

Luke stared at him, and then nodded, looking to the side. “Alright,” he said, “sure. But you’re...you’re alright, then?”

Obi-Wan nodded. “I’m fine,” he said, wanting desperately to move on from the conversation, for the boy to leave. He needed to think. If - if the townsfolk had heard him talking to Cody - perhaps not just  _ talking  _ to Cody - they’d -- 

He’d only have so much time, before they  _ did  _ come out, looking to express their disapproval. Staying would be dangerous. But he couldn’t leave. He’d promised Cody that he’d stay. And Cody had already sent someone to him, once, he--

“--listening?” Luke asked, and Obi-Wan blinked over at him. He’d moved back to the table, and was opening some of the magazines he’d brought. 

Obi-Wan took a breath and then another, fingers clenched tight in Boga’s fur. He said, “Of course,” and Luke narrowed his eyes, wrinkling his nose up.

“Sure,” Luke said, “anyway, look. I know you like swimming so much, and I saw this, and I thought maybe you didn’t know about it, so I brought it out.” He gestured down at the pages, expectantly, and Obi-Wan drifted a little closer.

He wasn’t sure what he expected, but it wasn’t what he got. He’d heard of people using breathing apparatuses under the water, before, but it had seemed a far away and made up proposition. Apparently, it was more realistic than he’d realized. 

He looked over the pictures of men wearing strange suits, with tanks strapped to them and masks over their faces. “Interesting, isn’t it?” Luke asked, concern apparently slipped from his mind as he leaned over, “I bet you could really swim with one of these. Have you seen one before? I bet they’ve got all kinds of interesting stuff away from here.” 

“It is very intriguing,” Obi-Wan said, even as he shook his head. He had no doubt the entire apparatus was incredibly expensive. Nothing he would ever be able to afford. 

Luke smiled up at him, expression fading as he got another look at Obi-Wan’s face. He said, “I thought you’d like it,” with his tone muted. “I brought all I could find about it. It was in a couple of old papers we had.”

“That was very thoughtful of you,” Obi-Wan said, leaning his weight on the back of the chair. He still hurt, far too much, and didn’t want to give Luke further cause to consider his injuries. He wanted to just...have the boy leave. 

He shook that thought away. In the end, it was fortunate Luke had arrived, even if it made Obi-Wan terribly uncomfortable. He said, with a grimace he didn’t have to feign, “Since you’re here, perhaps you could help me. I ended up running my tank dry, quite by accident. Do you think, next time you come by, you could bring me some gasoline?”

Luke seemed more than happy to agree, bouncing back out of the cabin almost immediately, chattering about the rest of his day and the errands he had to run. He sobered, every time he looked over at Obi-Wan, but only for a moment. 

Obi-Wan watched him go, feeling a leaden weight in his gut, and then swayed to the side, bracing one hand on the side of the cabin, and struggling to breathe evenly as his head swam and his chest got tighter.

If they suspected - knew - that he was something - something wrong, something they didn’t like, they’d-- 

He went to one knee, breath catching each time he tried to inhale. Luke was far from wrong to  _ suspect  _ that someone had come out to beat him. He’d be lucky if they only beat him. He’d seen what happened, he knew--

Boga whined, but she felt far away. Obi-Wan hunched over, shaking, wishing--

Wishing Cody were there, though it would make nothing better, not really. He tried to breathe steadily, tried to think, but the pressure of the past few days was clawing at him, making it so much harder to remember how even to keep his heart pumping, and---

He managed to draw in a breath, a long time later, pressed against the wall of his cabin, chest a throb of agony, arms shaking. He curled them close to his body, hunching over further, aware of Boga trying to lick the salt off of his face. He pressed against her, breathing raggedly, caught, unable to leave even knowing it was unsafe to stay.

He had not shaken the feeling of dread even by the time the sun sank. His hands were unsteady when he carefully wrote his nightly letter, when he fed it into the flames, the smoke burning his lungs as the night curled so tight around him.


	4. Chapter Four

The Togruta representatives largely stayed to themselves during the journey back towards the capital. Kote kept an eye on them - just in case - but they seemed more nervous than bent on an attempt at assassination. 

There were still moments of tension. They began, primarily, when Kote woke up the morning after they joined forces and discovered six Togruta, where before there had been five. He paused, frowning at the young woman who was making no attempt to hide, despite the increasingly agitated body language of her compatriots. 

Kote asked, nodding at the guards who had swam up from either side, “And where’d you come from?”

“From the delegation,” she said, the large fins along her tail starting to shift up. She was all oranges and white, with a fanned fin at the end of her tail and a decidedly spiky look. “Mistress Ti sent me after you left, she forgot to give you this.”

The woman shoved forward her hand, holding a large rock. Kote looked from the rock to her face, raising an eyebrow. “It’s a promise stone,” the woman said. “You have to take it.”

She had tremendously large blue eyes. He’d never learned what material the Togruta used to get the white tattoos some of them wore, but the woman had them prominently across her face in sharp, swooping patterns. She was also, as far as he could tell, lying to him.

He took the rock, anyway, and said, “Who do I have to thank for the delivery of the stone, then?”

“I’m called Ahsoka,” she said, “and I suppose I should stay with you. They’re too far gone for me to catch up, now.”

Kote looked past her shoulder, at the other Togruta. They were all staring at Ahsoka, expressions not quite locked all the way down. All of the….representatives seemed anxious about her sudden presence.

Kote shrugged. He had no desire to waste travel time trying to dig the truth out of the woman. It would come out sooner or later, anyway. And until then, he could keep an eye on her. In either case, she was right. Sending her back alone would have been overly dangerous.

Somehow, he didn’t think the Togruta would appreciate it if he allowed one of their messengers to venture into the deeps without any protection. “Fine,” he said, frowning at the rock - he was almost certain it was just some debris she’d picked up off of the seafloor - and turning aside. “You’ll be coming with us, then.”

He watched, as he turned away, one of the other Togruta grab her and pull her closer, hissing words against her ear.

Kote kept an eye on her - and the rest of the Togruta - on the journey back. It was not difficult to notice the way they deferred to her, but he left the subject lie. He wished, watching her over a meal, that he knew a little bit more about Togruta culture and….family lines.

She caused no further problems, in any case, aside from asking many questions throughout the journey. Most of them she directed to Kote; she was the only Togruta who made any attempts to speak to him, the rest preferring to demur or address the other members of the delegation.

He grew to appreciate the distraction she provided, if nothing else. If he were explaining the area they traveled through, it kept his thoughts from surging upwards, through the surface of the sea and across to Obi-Wan, to wondering if he and Eyayah were doing well….

The thoughts crept in, anyway, so very often. He ached for missing Obi-Wan’s smile, his even voice, the line of his neck down to his shoulder and the freckles over his skin, the sweet curve of his spine and the fall of his sun-bright hair.

“Who are you thinking about?” Ahsoka asked him, one evening, when they were ever so close to getting back to Sundari. He glanced over at her and found her draped over a resting sea turtle, her chin propped up on one hand. 

He asked, looking aside, “What?”

“When you get that look on your face, who are you thinking about?” 

“Someone I had to leave,” he said, quietly, “for a time.”

“Mm.” She shifted as the turtle grew tired of her attentions and pushed off of the sea floor, moving away. “Well, you’ll see them soon, won’t you? We should be back at your capital in a day or so, shouldn’t we?”

Kote glanced upwards and shook his head. “You should rest,” he said, “we have far to go, tomorrow.” He was not sure if she listened, or not. He was too busy resisting the urge to swim up to the surface, to look out across the endless waves, towards where Obi-Wan was, perhaps, looking across as well.

#

Obi-Wan healed slowly, but he did heal, mostly. He watched the bruises under his skin fade to green and yellow, the wounds across his body slowly sealing closed. He looked over the magazines Luke had brought while he recovered. He tended his garden and spent most of his time on the beach, standing, staring out across the water.

The idea of a device that would allow him to breathe under the waves was incredibly tempting, but there was no way for him to afford such a thing. His savings barely covered the expenses of his day-to-day life.

He set the idea aside. He didn’t even have the funds to purchase a new boat.

Fortunately, he was getting much better at swimming. He didn’t need a boat to reach the edge of the reef and to push beyond it. He returned to swimming after the majority of his wounds closed, as the terrible pain in his shoulders and back went mostly away.

Boga disliked it, immensely, and fretted at him from the shore line, but… He felt driven to see how far he could go, to feel the cold water all around his skin.

He knew, well enough, that other merfolk could be out there, waiting for him. He took to wearing a blade tied to his leg, even though the weight of it was uncomfortable. He’d managed to protect himself before, and….

Well, if they wanted to kill him badly enough, they could likely drag themselves up the shore to the cabin while he slept. The only way to truly avoid such an attack would have meant leaving, going somewhere they could not follow. He couldn’t make himself do that.

Not even with the growing murmurs of the townsfolk.

Obi-Wan dared one further trip into town after Luke dropped off a container of gasoline. He had little choice. The aching pain in his chest - left there since the merfolk tried to drown him - refused to fade completely and led eventually to a cough.

The pharmacist, at least, was willing to provide him with medication to ease the symptoms, though the man sniffed and would not make direct eye contact. Obi-Wan watched people stare and look away when they glanced towards him and felt his gut get tighter. Still, he’d worked to keep things normal as he moved to the general store.

That lasted until Owen had approached him, scowling. Owen was not a large man and gone soft already around the middle. He stopped well back from Obi-Wan. But there was...something about the way he stood that made Obi-Wan tense across the shoulders, even before Owen said, “I think it’d be best if you didn’t come in here, anymore.”

Each word dug a little deeper into the center of Obi-Wan’s chest. He tightened his grip on the bag of oranges he’d found; he didn’t care much for citrus, but he’d thought, if - if Cody  _ did  _ manage to come back…

He said, “I’m sorry, I don’t--”

“And I don’t want you around the boy anymore, either,” Owen continued, frown getting deeper. Obi-Wan stared across at him, considering that he’d  _ never  _ sought Luke out in the first place. 

Obi-Wan felt his chest getting tighter by the moment, and said, “Have I done something to--”

“We all have an idea what you’ve done,” Owen said, sharp, and reached out, taking the oranges from Obi-Wan’s hands. “I think it’s best you get on out of here. Don’t you?”

Obi-Wan had managed to walk out, despite the erratic beating of his pulse, the way it burned inside his veins. He managed to pet Boga, start the motorcycle, and make it well out of town before the shaking in his hands and arms grew too severe to keep going.

He managed to get off of the bike and to stumble away before he dropped to his knees, breathing raggedly, reaching a hand up to pull at his shirt, to press his knuckles against his sternum, recalling the impact of a fist against his cheek, and--

_ \--the feeling of old wood under his knees and one hand, the taste of blood in his mouth, the snarling, animal faces of the other boys, the splatter of something wet against his brow as someone spat and-- _

\--he retched, unexpectedly, onto the sand, humming loudly in the back of his throat, trying to stay away from all the dark, unpleasant places inside his head.

He wished, desperately, greedily, weakly, that Cody was back in his cabin. But there was only Boga, whining beside him until he eventually managed to drag himself up and over to his bike so they could continue on their way. They made it home, and she jumped around and licked his hands and whined, piteously, when he filled the tub up with water and climbed in all in his clothes, clenching into a ball.

He shivered, but at least he could blame that on the cold water soaking him to the skin. 

He should have left. He knew it, wedged into a tight ball, eyes burning. Leaving was the safe, smart choice. They  _ knew _ , or - or at least they  _ suspected _ , and they’d -- they weren’t just going to forget, people  _ didn’t _ , they’d--

Come for him, eventually. Drunk and brave, most likely. Running would have been the smart choice. But Cody had  _ promised _ . Obi-Wan hunched in a little further. And he stayed.

At least his cough went away, after a few days.

#

Kote had grown used to Ahsoka’s presence by the time they reached the capital. She wanted to know about his people and about his brothers, specifically. He humored her; she reminded him, truthfully, of Kix, who - once upon a time - had always had questions about everything. 

They were welcomed with less fanfare, thankfully. Kote wasn’t sure he could bear up under another huge celebration, not while the war still waged all around them. He watched the Togruta delegates as they moved through the city, towards the palace. They seemed intrigued. Nervous.

Much of their anxiety had faded, during the trip. They’d grown used enough to Kote and the others with him. They tensed and huddled together as the city drew close all around them, except for Ahsoka, who was ever in front, looking around with wide, sharp eyes, asking questions about the buildings and the people.

Kote ordered them all to be given quarters and allowed to rest, kept under guard - for their own safety, if nothing else - as they reached the palace. He would have liked to seek his own rooms, in all truth, but there was information to share, and he felt near to bursting with the need to share it.

They would have assistance. With luck, they would have an end to the war and the death.

His head buzzed as he entered the council chambers, both with exhaustion and excitement. There would be, he knew, discontent from some quarters with his decision. His spines itched under his skin with anticipation, and he turned his thoughts inward, waiting.

It did not take long for the others to begin to arrive, all in a rush of murmurs and churning water. Kote expected Thrull to arrive in a bellowing mood. He was surprised when Thrull slid in with his expression locked down tight, instead. Thrull spoke almost immediately, sharp-edged and tense as he said, “Have you really brought Togruta? Here? To the seat of your father’s house and--”

“It’s my house, now,” Kote interrupted, lips itching to draw back from his teeth. 

“And the worse for all of us that is so,” Thrull said, quietly. He wore a blade at his waist, which was hardly unusual. Kote had a weapon with him, as well. Thrull’s blade was ornate, in any case, fancy and decorative. “The Togruta are--”

“Willing to ally with us,” Kote said, keeping his fins down with effort. “Willing to send us an army to fight alongside our people. And we  _ will  _ take the assistance.”

“They broke faith,” Thrull said, voice low and quiet, his expression very strange. Kote had seen him wear it before, in the training circles and in the council chambers. It never boded well. The other councilors were murmuring to each other, tense. “They stood against your family.”

“The world is always changing,” Kote said, with a shrug. This argument felt pointless. He had business to tend to, he was needed on the front. This meeting should have been nothing but a courtesy, to inform the council of what had happened. He heard impatience in his own tone when he said, “So Sho’cye tells us, or have you forgotten? Nothing remains the same forever. In the past, there was bad blood between us. But that  _ is  _ the past. We have changed, the situation has changed, they have changed.”

“ _ You  _ have changed,” Thrull said, murmurs stirring loudly around the room as he moved forward. “Far too much. Since your injury. Since your time with a  _ human _ .” And  _ that  _ shut off all the murmurs at once, everyone else falling silent. Thrull said, into the quiet, “You were - were badly hurt. We understand. But I think it is clear, now, that you are not fully recovered. You have made… numerous errors in judgement, starting with your decision to allow the human to live.”

Kote fought the urge to snarl. He exhaled down his back and said, clipped, “He saved--”

“And because of your choice, six of our people are dead,” Thrull went on, voice rising as he turned, gesturing to the crowd gathered around them while something in Kote’s chest went still and cold. He glanced towards his mother, amongst the crowd, and saw puzzlement on her expression. And worry.

Kote asked, confusion ringing in his head and chest, “What are you talking about?”

“Your human,” Thrull said, turning back, eyes blazing, “Is dangerous. A monster, just as we’ve always been told. He  _ killed  _ six of us. Slaughtered three of us with his bare hands! He used some kind of - of magic to kill two others! The sixth--”

“What did you do?” Kote barely recognized his own voice. He lost the fight to control his reactions, felt the fins raising all down his tail and the spines sliding free from his skin, his mind racing along. He’d sent Eyayah to check on Obi-Wan. He knew Obi-Wan would not have harmed Eyayah. So, how had six others ended up there? Why would--

“I discovered that Prince Eyayah was leaving the city,” Thrull said, fins raising in response to Kote’s threat display. “On your orders, I assume, my Lord. We are at  _ war _ . I worried for his safety, so I ordered my own guards to follow him--”

“Where is Eyayah?” Kote asked, fear kicking hard in the back of his throat. Eyayah was not yet fully a man; Kote had not thought that would matter. He’d sent Eyayah  _ away  _ from the fighting, but--

“--and he went directly to the  _ monster  _ you say tended you,” Thrull went on, as though Kote had not spoken, turning to gesture around the room. Everyone, Kote noticed, from somewhere distant, was watching Thrull. Listening to him. “My guards were curious, of course. And they believed the human to be safe. After all--” he cut Kote a look, sharp “--you marked yourself for him.”

“He is not a monster,” Kote snapped back, the confusion and fear in his gut souring with anger that Thrull would make such a claim, bold, in the council chambers. He needed to go - go ensure that Obi-Wan was safe and well, but-- 

“No?” Thrull asked, tilting his head to the side. “And yet the  _ human  _ slaughtered five people. Some strange beast that serves him nearly killed a sixth outright. He barely escaped with his life to bring me word before he perished from his injuries. This is what humans  _ are _ , violent and dangerous and--”

“You’re lying,” Kote snapped back, because no other explanation for the claims made sense. 

Kote did not believe that Obi-Wan was not dangerous. Obi-Wan had never been anything but gentle with him, careful. But there had ever and always been a sense of barely restrained motion to him, an urge to either fight or run. Kote had not needed to see Obi-Wan fight, he had not needed the stories Obi-Wan had carefully shared with him, revealing the edges of what he’d done in his war, to know that Obi-Wan was dangerous when he had cause to be.

But Obi-Wan had never been monstrous. He was as far from a monster as anyone Kote had ever met.

Thrull clicked, loudly, and reached for his belt. For a moment, Kote thought intended to pull his blade. Instead, he lifted something from a pouch on the belt. Kote jerked back, heart stopping, as he recognized the patched together cord and the shells, carefully arranged.

He’d last seen the necklace against Obi-Wan’s skin.

“Ah,” Thrull said, quiet and grim. “I see you recognize it. The sole survivor said the human who attacked them was wearing this. It  _ was  _ your human, then?”

Kote stared at the necklace, the frayed ends of it, imagining six Mandalorians trying to kill Obi-Wan, dread unfurling fast and deep through him. Thrull was lying, he had no doubt. He just didn’t know the extent and shape of the lie. Thrull had Obi-Wan’s necklace. He’d spoken of a beast, which could have been Boga….

He said Obi-Wan had killed five people directly. And lived, but--

Kote considered, a chasm opening in his gut, that perhaps the truth was that Obi-Wan was dead on the beach, gutted. He wanted to believe that Thrull had inadvertently brought him word that Obi-Wan yet lived. That he - he was willing to fight for his own life, but--

“You have been through a great trauma, you survived a tremendous injury,” Thrull was saying, from somewhere far away. “It...disordered your thinking. You broke from our ways for an attachment to a monster. And now you’re made this alliance with the Togruta, after what they did to your grandfather....” He tsked, shaking his head.

“I’ve done what needs to be done,” Kote said, forcing the words through his tight throat, knowing, distantly, that he needed to say  _ something _ . Everyone in the council chamber was listening. Intently. Murmuring to one another. Paying attention to what Thrull was saying. So happy to believe him.

“I’m sure you believe that,” Thrull said, eyes hard and expression set. “But that does not mean that it is so. I believe it would be best for you to...submit yourself to the care of the healers, for a time. Only until you recover from this confusion of your mind, of course, and--”

Kote clicked, sharp. There was a heavy, cold weight in his gut, dragging him down. “And I suppose you will be happy to step in, to handle things while I am recovering?” he asked, staring across into Thrull’s eyes, wondering if the man believed, truly, that he would just accept this. That he would listen to accusations that Obi-Wan was dangerous and violent, some kind of monster, and do nothing while he was pushed off his throne.

Emotion surged through him. He had been angry many times in his life, but he’d never quite experienced this jagged edge of the emotion. It was brand new, a feeling beyond even rage.

“I would yield to the decision of the council, of course,” Thrull said, meeting his gaze without flinching. “I am not the only one concerned for you, my Lord.”

Kote’s heart jerked. He glanced around the room, taking in the unnatural silence of all of the councilors, watching this play out. He wondered how many of them had whispered to one another while he was gone. While he was working to save them. He said, “Is this the evidence of your concern, then?”

“You cannot argue with the facts, my Lord. You claim you love a monster, and--”

“He is  _ not a monster _ ,” Kote snapped, composure gone, for all that he knew it was a mistake. Thrull accused him of losing his senses. Shouting would only support Thrull’s claims, and he knew it, but control felt stripped from his reach. He had not anticipated  _ any of this _ , he’d thought to merely deliver a brief missive and be gone from Sundari. He continued, modulating his tone slightly, “He is my  _ heart _ \- my  _ betrothed  _ \- a man who showed me only kindness--”

“And yet six people are  _ dead _ ,” Thrull snarled across at him, voice raising. “Please, be reasonable. Let us give you the care you need so you can recover, that is all we are asking.” There were murmurs of agreement all around the room, and a commotion outside of the chamber. Kote heard it, but decided it could wait until he’d somehow regained control of this situation, until he’d found out what really happened, until--

“Kote!” Eyayah’s voice was a surprise. Kote jerked to watch Eyayah surge through the door to the chamber, followed by two puzzled guards. Eyayah looked...awful, bedraggled and exhausted. There was a healing wound on his arm - Kote would have recognized Obi-Wan’s stitch work anywhere, which meant Obi-Wan  _ was alive _ , or had been - and dark circles under his eyes. 

Eyayah blurted, words pouring out of him, spoken so quickly they barely made sense, “Kote, they caught me - six guards - and attacked me! They tried to kill him - your heart, Obi-Wan - but he stopped them! He saved me! He’s--he’s fine!”

Va’yen moved forward, all in a rush, grabbing Eyayah and looking him over as Kote turned his attention, suddenly cold as the sea in the far north, towards Thrull. Some of the tumbling unease he’d felt settled with the knowledge that at least Eyayah was safe. That Obi-Wan was  _ fine _ , no matter what Thrull had tried to do.

Kote asked, each word dropped like a stone from the shore, going still inside, “Worried for Eyayah’s  _ safety _ , were you?”

Thrull looked over at Eyayah, who was trying to push away from Va’yen’s hands, who was continuing, agitated red and yellow light flashing over his skin, “He wasn’t - he isn’t - I - they followed me and I tried to fight them, Kote. I’m sorry, I should have - but he swam down and he cut me free!” Half of what Eyayah was saying made no sense, but that was a concern for later. 

Thrull’s gills all flared. He no longer looked so calm. So composed. He worked his jaw and said, tone wavering just a little, “The boy is obviously in a state of panic and--”

“Is he suffering from a confusion of the mind, too?” Kote asked, flat, and watched Thrull jerk to look at him, watched some of the color fade out of his scales. Kote’s mouth curled up in the corners. His thoughts sped along, each one with a cold, sharp edge. “I advise that you choose your next words carefully.”

He could also  _ see  _ Thrull doing just that, looking over at Eyayah and then back at Kote, even as Eyayah continued, finally wresting free of Va’yen’s hold, his glow a mess of colors, uncontrolled and agitated, “I heard them talking, after they restrained me. They weren’t quiet. They went there to kill him, your human. I’m sorry, Kote,” he said, all agitation, “I would have been here sooner, but there were people looking for me. I didn’t let them catch me, again.”

Kote forgot, just for a moment, how to breathe. The news did not feel like a surprise. Just confirmation of what his heart had already suspected. He stared at Thrull, head gone utterly quiet, and asked, “Well?”

Thrull opened his mouth and shut it, before managing to rally. He said, “A bold claim, to be sure. But it is only the word of one boy. Your brother. He  _ would  _ support you, wouldn’t he? The love in your family has never been in dispute, my Lord.”

“And there is only your word to oppose him,” Kote said, feeling very much as though he had ended up on a battlefield, everything getting sharp and clear, options running through his mind one after another.

Thrull stared back at him, glancing around the room, still silent. He said, “To be sure. Perhaps time should be taken to….demonstrate that I am right, if that is what the council desires. An inquest could be made, though I believe we all know what it would discover.”

There could be an inquest. A trial. Kote could call for one. Waste time bantering more words around. Listen to more of Thrull’s lies. But that was not his only option to redress the wrong done to him. There were older ways. Better ways. Kote said, each word hard and flat, “An inquest? You tried to kill my betrothed--”

“A false claim--” 

“It’s not a claim. It’s an accusation. I say you conspired to attempt murder,” Kote continued, speaking over Thrull, who went still at the words, more of the surety draining out of his expression as he stared at Kote. “And committed treason, too.”

Thrull’s eyes were dark, his expression shifting. He said, something sharp in his voice, his tone no longer so perfectly calm, “An inappropriate jest, my Lord. You cannot accuse me of anything. He’s human. Humans have no rights to--”

Kote surged forward and stopped himself before he grabbed Thrull by the throat, barely. There was a satisfaction to watching Thrull jerk back and away from him, the flinch apparently automatic. Kote said, biting out each word, “Obi-Wan is  _ mine _ . He shares  _ my  _ blood. I share  _ his _ .  _ I  _ still have rights, do I not?”

Kote was close enough to watch Thrull’s eyes dart to the side, to see the way his pupils had widened. He said, “Of course, my Lord. Do you wish to try me, then? For trying to protect your brother--”

“No,” Kote cut in, watching him, unblinking, feeling a burn all along his veins, through his nerves. Thrull had sent people to kill Obi-Wan. Kote did not doubt Eyayah, even for a moment. “There’ll be no trial. It would not satisfy, anyway. It would be only your word against Eyayah’s.” He shook his head. “No. You’ll answer for your crimes in the old way. We’ll let Sho’cye decide.”

Thrull looked at him, fins lowering down his tail in a wave, but they were long past the point where he could change anything about the situation by feigning submission. Thrull said, sharp, “Don’t be foolish. Duels are--”

“Traditional, in this circumstance,” Kote snapped. He’d never challenged anyone to such a fight, before. He’d had no cause to do so. But he knew the codes. And he’d seen his father call for a duel, more than once. He said, mocking, “I know how much you value the ways of our people.” 

Thrull shifted back from him, bluster all fallen away as he said, “You cannot--”

“Yes,” Kote said, drawing the blade he wore at his hip, the curve of the handle perfect and reassuring in his palm. “I can.” He turned his face to the side, towards the crowd, keeping eye contact with Thrull the entire time, thrumming under his skin. He asked, raising his voice, “I say this man tried to destroy my heart, as marked with ink and blood. I have the testimony of a witness. Do I not, then, have the lawful right to challenge?”

There was silence, for a moment, and then a clear, high voice from his back said, “You do, my Lord, by all our codes.”

Kote felt his mouth curve up, teeth bared to any who wished to see them. He said, “The council has spoken, Thrull. I know you respect their rulings. Now, draw a weapon, or do not, if that is what you prefer.” It would change nothing. Kote intended to kill him and would see it done.

The murmurs around the room came back, finally, harsh-edged. The crowd drew back, as though they wanted, suddenly, as much space between themselves and Thrull as possible. So, they were not complete fools, then. Kote hoped, in a cold place inside his head, that they were all paying attention. He expected to make a statement. 

Thrull stared at him for a beat longer and then swore, apparently deciding that he was wasting words. He drew the blade he wore at his waist and surged forward, snarling.

It was not, as such, much of a fight. Thrull had been a warrior once, and strong. He’d fought beside Jango for years. Decades. Had a hand in Kote’s training. Left him with scars, including the one that curved on his brow. Thrull had been brutal in a fight. Strong and skilled. He’d beaten Kote, over and over again, when Kote was a boy and a young man.

But that had been years ago, and, even with the injuries Kote had taken…. Well. He’d always been skilled with blade and spear. And he was so angry, the fury in his chest fueled by the idea of Obi-Wan, already so hurt inside, facing people intent on killing him without reason or explanation, and--

They circled around one another, closing and withdrawing again, the rest of the chamber falling away into irrelevance. Kote drew the first blood, opening a cut along Thrull’s side, the man hissing at him. Thrull had handled much of his training, once upon a time, had delighted in beating him. Kote realized - avoiding a slow strike and grabbing Thrull’s arm, claws sinking into skin, gouging deep, focusing on the nerves and tendons that lined the inside of the forearm - that he’d far surpassed the old bastard.

Thrull must have realized the same - must have already known, he hadn’t come to the chamber to fight with anything but  _ words _ \- because he tried to jerk away all at once, his eyes on the door to the chamber, tail tensing. Kote tasted blood all along his gills.

Kote tightened his hold, adjusting his grip on the knife. Thrull cried out, dropping his own weapon, grabbing Kote’s arm, instead. He held on tightly, eyes wide as he panted out, “No, don’t--”

Kote released Thrull’s arm, grabbed his shoulder, and yanked him bodily forward, onto the blade. And gutting him was better, probably, than he deserved. The knife slid through flesh easily enough, Kote dragging his hand up, as Thrull released his grip, gasping. Kote sliced through the decorative bands Thrull wore around his waist, stones and pearls floating away as they parted, as his blood spilled out everywhere between them, into a great cloud.

Through it all, Kote stared across at Thrull, at his dark eyes, wide and shocked. Kote stopped when the blade struck bone and pulled it free. He pushed Thrull away, the man twitching as he went limp. Kote let him float freely, reaching out only to take the broken necklace he’d held. Kote curled his fingers around it, holding it close and carefully.

Around the room, everyone else had fallen silent. Kote twitched his tail, turning in a slow circle, staring out across all of them, their expressions tense and drawn; some of them were holding onto one another. Every one of them looked away when he met their gazes.

None of them raised a complaint. They had no room to argue and they all knew it. They could have - and some of them would have - done the same, had their heart been threatened. 

He said, into the quiet, hard as the edge of a blade, “I will not tolerate  _ any  _ harm to come to my heart. If anyone  _ ever  _ threatens him again, I promise you that I will make what I’ve done here look like mercy. Do I make myself clear?”

#

The meeting fell apart shortly after that. Kote had no patience to deal with the crowd, with their questions and short-sighted judgement. He was not surprised, overmuch, when his mother and Eyayah followed him back to his quarters.

He pulled Eyayah close once they were alone, looking him over, Eyayah shoving at his hands and protesting, “I’m fine, really.”

“You’re not,” Kote said, but they’d already requested that Kix attend them, so there was little else to be done about it. He pulled Eyayah in close, curled both arms around him, and held him, for a moment. “I’m sorry, I should have sent more guards with you.”

He felt Eyayah grimace against his shoulder. “No, I should have been paying more attention. I didn’t even - even put up a fight, really, and - and I’m sorry. You sent me to look after your Obi-Wan and he had to - he didn’t murder them,” Eyayah said, pulling back and looking Kote in the eyes, “I swear it.”

Eyayah’s eyes were so wide, so earnest. Kote squeezed his shoulders and nodded. He’d not doubted, even for a moment, but it tightened his chest to have Eyayah so intent on providing confirmation. 

“I’m just glad you’re alright,” Va’yen said, wrapping her arms around both of them, leaning her head against Kote’s. Eyayah did not remain in their embrace for long, breaking away when Kote’s door opened again, Kix swimming through and swearing, tiredly, at the sight of them.

Kote watched Kix look over the wound on Eyayah’s arm and asked, his mind churning as the adrenaline in his blood settled, “He was well, aside from the attack? Obi-Wan?”

Eyayah looked over at him, all wide eyes and a grimace. He said, flinching just a bit as Kix prodded at him, “He was...I don’t know, Kote. He beat them, but they hurt him, too. He was...bleeding, a lot. But I didn’t leave until I got him to tend to his wounds, I promise.”

Kote’s teeth ached. He made himself release his jaw. It took an unpleasant amount of effort. He wanted to go back, right away, to set out from Sundari and make sure for himself that Obi-Wan was well, to make sure that he knew that the people who had tried to kill him had been stopped, to--

The knowledge that he could not go set heavy on his chest, occupying his thoughts as Kix spoke with Eyayah and their mother, all of them murmuring to one another. He startled when his mother asked, “What do you think, Kote?”

“I think I didn’t send enough people,” he said, twitching his tail, looking over at Kix, his thoughts racing along in his mind, plans and strategies unfolding one after another. “How is Wolv doing?”

Kix shrugged, looking surprised. “He….went through much,” Kix said. “But he’ll live. He’s up and about, anyway, but I doubt he’ll… he won’t be able to fight as he once did, Kote. With the eye missing, his vision will be.... ” Kix grimaced.

Kote nodded. He’d assumed as much regarding Wolv’s vision. But that would be less of a problem if he weren’t fighting in the middle of the open sea…. He said, “I want to speak with him. Now. Eyayah, go and find him.” Eyayah grumbled, but obeyed without a fuss, cutting out of the room with a final irritated click. Kote watched Kix start gathering up his things, and said, “You stay.”

Kix wrinkled his nose, looked over, and then froze at whatever he saw on Kote’s expression. He said, after a long moment, his voice gone tense, “Kote, no. Don’t even think about it, I don’t know how to tend to humans.”

Kote shrugged, working to keep his tone as even as he could when he said, “He didn’t know how to tend to me, but he kept me alive.” 

“Kote--”

“I don’t trust anyone else to look after him!” Kote snapped, his frayed temper giving way, all at once. “They tried to kill him, and I don’t know if he is well! I don’t know how badly they hurt him! I don’t know what they did!” Kix blinked over at him, and Kote went on, hearing the raggedness of his own voice. “I  _ need  _ to know that he’s safe. That he’s not hurt. I need someone to look after him. Tell me who else could I possibly send, but you.”

Kix swore, softly, and scrubbed at his face. “You always have to make things difficult, don’t you?” he asked, but there was acquiescence in his tone and written across his expression. He did not argue, further, only said he would need to prepare, especially if Kote expected them to leave quickly.

Kix slipped from the room as Eyayah returned, Wolv at his tail. 

Kote looked at Wolv; he’d lost so many of his brothers, and each scar spoke to how close he’d come to losing Wolv, too. He still wore a bandage over the side of his face, though many of his other wounds were closing, turning to pale scars, a map of the hurts done to him while Kote was away.

People kept hurting those he loved, while he wasn’t there to put a stop to it, and--

Kote exhaled down his back, tried to find something to say, and failed for the moment, just grabbing Wolv and pulling him closer, holding him. Wolv curled an arm around him, leaned the side of his head against Kote’s, and said, “I heard you gutted Thrull.”

Kote nodded. There was no reason to deny it. No doubt the story had spread throughout the city. It would spread further, he hoped. He wanted everyone to know exactly what had happened, exactly what fate awaited anyone  _ else  _ who took it into their head to go hurt Obi-Wan. He said, drawing back, “He tried to destroy my heart.” 

Wolv stared across at him, his remaining eye dark. He’d regained none of the weight he’d lost, looking sharp-edged. Hollow cheeked. Kote met his gaze and went on, “Others might try. He needs protection.”

Wolv nodded, gaze cutting to the side, sharp. “You should send someone as soon as possible. Actual guards, this time, Kote, and--”

“I’m glad you agree,” Kote cut in, snagging back Wolv’s attention. “You can have your pick of the royal guard - you can have your pick of  _ whoever you want _ .” He’d send an entire army, if that was what Wolv thought was necessary. “Take as many as you see fit. Just make him safe.”

Wolv blinked at him, expression freezing into rigidity. Across the room, his mother went still as well, ceasing her soft conversation with Eyayah and looking over at them. Wolv said, after a moment, “What?”

“I expect you to leave no later than the morning,” Kote said. He wanted them to leave  _ immediately _ , but he knew very well that it would take time to gather up sufficient guards and supplies. They would not travel so quickly as Eyayah had managed on his own. Especially not taking Wolv along. There had been damage done to his tail; it would slow them down. “Make sure he’s alright. I give you full discretion over how to protect him, just ensure that it’s done.”

Wolv stared, and when he spoke his voice was a rasp, “Kote...”

“He may be hurt,” Kote said, when Wolv trailed off, looking as though he had swallowed his tongue. “Physically. And he is injured in his mind. Singing helps, it affects humans, or at least him, so--”

“Stop,” Wolv said, the word ragged. “You want me to--Kote.” He blinked, rapidly, looking to the side, mouth twisting. “Kote, after--there must be someone better--”

“There is not,” Kote said, as gentle an interruption as he could manage, watching Wolv jerk, physically, at the words. “There’s no one else I’d trust more to keep him safe.” It was not even a lie. Wolv had always been fierce and with a mind turned to defenses. And it would keep him far, far away from the war, from the woman who had carved pieces off of him.

And the council might protest if Kote tried to send guards off to protect a human. But they could say nothing about the movements of his brothers, who would, after all, need guards if they were to travel.

“But,” Wolv started, and gestured, jerkily, towards his face. 

“But what?” Kote asked, and Wolv looked back at him, expression searching. He must have found what he was looking for, because some tension eased from his body, his shoulders straightening from where they’d slumped. He was hurt, still. And perhaps that meant that Kote should not have sent him, but-- But he trusted his brothers. He trusted Wolv. And he knew, very well, that Obi-Wan was skilled at helping the injured. He said, still holding Wolv’s gaze, “I’ll provide you with directions and--”

“You don’t need to,” Eyayah cut in, sliding over and grabbing Kote’s arm. “I’ll show them where to go. I remember the way.”

Va’yen made a sharp sound, expression tense as she said, “You’re hurt and exhausted, surely--”

“I’m fine,” Eyayah insisted, shaking his head. “I can do this.” He met Kote’s gaze, eyes dark and wide, jaw set. Sending him would put three of Kote’s brothers far away from the fighting. Boba would be as safe as possible in Sundari. There was little and less Kote could do to get Rex off of the line, but…

“Good,” Kote said, the decision an easy one to make, all told. “Rest while Kix gathers what he needs and Wolv selects his guard. I want you to leave as quickly as possible.” Kote watched Wolv and Eyayah leave moments later with his chest aching, the two of them already discussing their travel plans.

He blinked when his mother did not follow, instead shutting the door and turning her clear eyes on him. He said, quietly, “I am sorry Eyayah was hurt. I should have sent guards with him in the first place, I just didn’t think...”

“That anyone would try to kill the man you loved?” she finished for him, with a little distressed noise, crossing to wrap her arms around his shoulders. “The mad actions of others are not your fault. You know that.”

“The council may disagree,” he told her, comforted by the familiar warmth of her arms, the brush of her hair across his jaw. 

She clicked, sharp, in the back of her throat, and said, “It was, perhaps, past time that the council acknowledged that - despite what they would like to believe - you are very much your father’s son.”

Kote shivered down his back. The comparisons to his father would always follow him, he had no doubt. He opened his mouth, and she said, quietly, “Worry not. He would not have tolerated any attack on your betrothed, Kote, were he still alive. You know that.”

Kote nodded. That he knew. The council had not approved of Kote’s mother, either. She’d had neither title nor standing, before the marriage. But Jango had loved her. He’d struck down a few who could not accept that decision. Kote said, “But, the Togruta….”

“He would never have forgiven them,” she said, a note of sadness in her voice. “It’s true. But that does not mean he wouldn’t have understood. Change comes to all of us.” She tightened her grip on him. “It cannot be fought. And only fools try.”

Kote leaned his head against hers. He did not say that he must leave again, soon, likely with the coming of the new day. He had secured help, such as was possible. He had to go, had to find Rex and take his place.

But for the moment, he only leaned against his mother and hoped that Obi-Wan was healing well, hoped that he was safe, hoped that Wolv and the others reached him quickly. 

#

Planning to go back to the lines was a relief, in a way. Kote knew what to expect on a battlefield. He trusted the people he fought beside; he had no  _ choice  _ but to trust the people he fought beside. It was so different from Sundari, where, apparently, he had to worry about people taking it into their heads to try to kill Obi-Wan.

He could not chase away the chill in his bones from the thought. Knowing that Obi-Wan was alone - unguarded - ate away at him, preventing him from sleeping, even after his family finally left him in quiet.

Kote drew out the broken necklace only then, running his thumb across each shell in turn. There were marks on the cloth. Dark stains. Blood. He hoped it was not Obi-Wan’s, but could not know. 

The fabric had parted neatly, perhaps on the blade of a knife, perhaps on claws. Kote touched the fraying edges, aching inside, and his servants asked no questions when he requested a number of supplies they must have thought strange.

It took time to re-string the shells onto a cord of tendon, far sturdier than the rope he’d made of frayed blankets. But he did not plan to sleep, in any case. He took his time, remembering gathering each shell, wanting Obi-Wan to have  _ something _ …

He shook the thoughts aside and finished the project, listening to the palace wake and stir around him. A necklace would not offer Obi-Wan any protection, he knew.

Wolv would. Sho’cye knew he was never happier than when he was bossing people around for their own good. He’d seemed….better, when he came to speak with Kote before leaving. He’d straightened his back, spelling out his plan to travel and make Obi-Wan secure.

Each word he spoke eased some of the tension in Kote’s chest, made it easier for him to breathe, only for him to tense again when Wolv added, “Eyayah says you gave him….gifts, before. The attempted assassins took them.”

Kote forced his hands to relax, wishing Thrull was alive again, just to properly kill the man once more. He’d been looking forward to seeing the bands on Obi-Wan’s arms; the blue against his skin would have been lovely.

“See if you can find them,” he said, “after you arrive and make him safe. And…” Kote paused, thinking of the other items he’d gathered. He’d wanted to give the rest to Obi-Wan personally, to place each item on his skin, but…. “There are other things I’d like you to give him.”

The ring he kept back. He knew well enough that had to be delivered personally, placed upon Obi-Wan’s finger to seal their marriage. But he should have sent the pearls, already. They were, traditionally, to be kept in Obi-Wan’s care until all ceremonies were completed, all vows were exchanged.

Wolv made no comment when Kote handed over each precious item, but his expression shifted again when Kote drew out last the repaired necklace. He held it, carefully, and Kote cleared his tight throat. “Travel safely,” Kote told Wolv, watching him adjust his grip on such gifts as Kote could offer.

“Fight well,” Wolv replied, his own voice gone hoarse. 

#

Kote did not delay his departure after his brothers got on their way towards the surface. He spoke with the council, but only briefly. No one seemed in the mood to start arguments. The water in the council chambers still tasted, faintly, of blood. Perhaps that was why.

He told them what he planned, and they murmured and nodded and watched him go. He got the feeling they were not terribly sorry to see the back of him. He took what forces had been gathered in Sundari in his absence, rounded up the Togruta, and he left. 

The Togruta kept to themselves during the journey. Kote caught them watching him, often with wide eyes, and did not know why until Ahsoka settled beside him during one of their long rests, her tail stretched out across the sand. She, at least, seemed to have fully accepted that he was harmless.

“Your people,” he said, doing the stretches the healers had insisted would help with his range of motion, “look like they’re worried I’m going to eat you. More so than they did before, even.”

She twitched her fin, spreading sand up into the water around them, clicking in her throat. “They’re worried,” she said, glancing up at him. “We all heard that you killed one of your own people. Gutted him, in fact.”

Kote shrugged. He’d heard murmurs already, himself, though not from the Togruta. “I did. But it wasn’t murder. I was within my rights. He tried to kill my heart.” He tilted his chin over towards the other Togruta. “They’re not going to try the same, are they?”

She clicked again. “They’d better not.”

“Well.” He shifted around; talking about what had happened to Obi-Wan made him itch, under his skin. That his  _ own people  _ tried to kill him, after all the damage Obi-Wan had already taken in his life was infuriating. “Then they don’t have to worry about coming to any harm from me.”

He felt her watching as he moved off to check the forces accompanying them. 

The itch of unease stayed between his shoulders throughout their travels. It still lingered, by the time they finally located the forward lines; they were closer than Kote expected, closer than they’d been when he left. It took further time to find Rex, who spotted him coming and darted forward.

There was no battle raging, at the least. It looked like they’d narrowly missed the last engagement. Many of the warriors in camp were tending to one another, and the water tasted of blood. Kote wondered how many they’d lost, how many had died, and then Rex was there, grabbing his arm and pulling him close.

“It’s good to see you alive,” Kote said, and meant it, the lingering grief of all the brothers he’d lost bubbling inside his chest. Their family had taken too many losses. He was not sure he could bear anymore. It was a relief to know that Wolv, Kix, and Eyayah would be far from the fighting. They should be safe, he prayed.

Rex knocked the side of his head against Kote’s and said, “It’s good to be alive.” He pulled back, after a moment, and looked across the small crowd that accompanied Kote. “Though I expected to see you with more help than this.”

“More help is coming,” Kote reassured, and tilted his head towards the Togruta delegates. “These have only come to show willing.”

Rex looked over at them, gaze snagging for a moment as he said, “I’m sure the six of them will be a tremendous help.”

Kote restrained the urge to display his amusement. He doubted their Togruta guests would appreciate it. Instead, he looked across the gathered group, unsurprised to find Ahsoka near the front, her eyes sharp and bright. He tilted his head. “I’m sure you’re right. This is Ahsoka. She speaks for them, mostly. Ahsoka, this is my brother, Marekar.” It felt strange to use Rex’s full name with  _ anyone _ , but it seemed inappropriate to use the diminutive version with representatives from another people.

Or perhaps he was mistaken. Rex nodded across and said, “Just call me Rex. Everyone else does.” He blew water out through his gills a moment later, looking over at Kote and continuing, “Well, I suppose you want to know what’s happened while you were gone.”

And Rex tugged him away, over to a sheltered place against the side of a downed human ship, old and hulking and mostly made of wood. Kote listened to all he had to say, to news of the losses they’d taken, the battle they’d survived by giving ground, the current locations of their enemies, as far as Rex knew them.

“I’m glad you’re back,” Rex said, after he was finished, his expression grim and his eyes focusing on nothing as he stared out across the water. “I’m not--I did what I could, but--”

“You did well,” Kote told him, and Rex twitched both mouth and fins, unblinking as he stared forward, tense when Kote put a hand on his shoulder.

“Tell me about these Togruta, then,” Rex said, after a long moment, and that discussion took them into all that had happened back in the capital. They spoke into the night, where Kote’s sleep was troubled, plagued by images of Obi-Wan dragged below the surf by clawed hands, held beneath the water while bubbles of air escaped him, until he turned to foam and dissolved and--

Kote woke with a cry bitten back in his throat, trying to hold onto the belief that Wolv and the others would reach Obi-Wan soon, would make him safe, would protect him. But he could not shake the images from the dream and gave up on sleeping, roaming through the camp, instead, unsettled and uneasy in his soul.

#

Obi-Wan found himself looking over his shoulder every time he was out of the cabin. A sour knot of fear sat in the back of his throat as the days slipped past. He’d already started carrying his service sidearm with him when he wasn’t in the ocean, but he did not know, really, if it would be enough to frighten off anyone who eventually came for him.

He could only hope that it would be.

He didn’t want to hurt anyone else.

The worries followed him, even out into the water. Sometimes he thought that if the townsfolk came for him, he might just swim out, as far as he could.

He didn’t think they’d be able to catch him. He’d gotten quite good. And there was peace, out in the deep water, where the waves barely rose and fell, except during a storm. Obi-Wan considered the peace of it, floating on his back far from shore and staring up at the slow drift of dawn over the sky. The world was quiet and still and--

He jerked at a noise through the water. A voice. He’d known, all along, that the merfolk might return. He’d known there was a risk, each time he swam out so far from the shore. He’d done it anyway. Just living was a risk, currently, and--

He looked around, but the rising sun reflected off of the surface of the water, turning it into a glowing, opaque layer. He didn’t waste the breath to swear, ducking below the surface of the water, instead, the salt burning his eyes as he looked around, spotting movement, yet far off, yellow or perhaps orange.

He surfaced again, considering his options. There was no way he could beat them to shore. They were so much faster than he was in the water. And making a desperate go of it would only expend his energy. Better, then, to try to face them where he was, to hope there weren’t too many. He had a knife, after all.

Obi-Wan breathed, slow and deep, waiting for the first charge into him, pulse racing as - at yet a distance - someone else broke the surface of the water.

It took Obi-Wan a moment to make sense of the features he saw, to identify them as  _ familiar _ . 

“Hello,” Eyayah called in Mando’a, lifting an arm out of the water, “I’ve come back and - don’t worry - I brought help this time.”

Obi-Wan blinked across at him; he’d thought, for a heart-wrenching moment, that it had been  _ Cody _ , and he’d--

He ignored the throbbing ache in his chest, and managed to ask, “What?”

“Kote sent us,” Eyayah said, other figures rising to break the surface of the water as he spoke. “To make sure you were well. And--”

“And you shouldn’t be this far out, alone,” one of the others said; a man with a tremendous scar down over his brow, leading to a patch over one of his eyes. He was frowning.

“Especially if you’re still hurt,” another said, scowling and swimming forward. 

“Excusing me,” Obi-Wan said, confused and lost, trying to take in all of them; many of them had the same dark eyes, but some of them, further back, had a different look. “Explaining for what is happening, please.”

#

In the end, Cody’s brothers all but herded Obi-Wan over to a protrusion of stone - or perhaps old coral - that rose from the water. He climbed onto the stone - there was enough room for him to fully lay down, if he so wished - and looked across at them, listening to the introductions Eyayah happily provided.

There was satisfaction to putting faces to the names he’d had for so long. He hadn’t expected to see so many of Cody’s brothers; apparently he’d sent  _ three _ of them. Kix pulled himself up onto the stone as well, frowning as he looked Obi-Wan over. His face was narrower than Cody’s, his hair longer.

Kix said, cutting a glance to the side, “You left him alone, with wounds like this?”

Eyayah sunk a little lower, barely keeping his mouth above the water line. He said, “I had to get back and tell Kote what had happened. He said he was fine.”

“Most fine,” Obi-Wan said, jolting when Kix touched him, putting a hand on his shoulder and pushing, just a little. Kix made a sharp sound in the back of his throat, touching mostly healed wounds, one after another. Obi-Wan tried to shift away from him, and Kix gripped his arm, only hesitating as he reached Obi-Wan’s shoulders.

“You seem alright  _ now _ ,” Kix said, after a moment, giving him an odd look, one eyebrow raised, the corner of his mouth crooking. 

“Am fine,” Obi-Wan told them. The brothers had clustered around him, but there were other merfolk, moving around further out. He  _ was  _ fine, just utterly confused. “What -- why all of you are being here?”

Wolv frowned up at him, and said, “Because Kote told us to come here and look after you, until he could come back. No one else should try to hurt you, Kote ensured that, but.” He shrugged, looking to the side. “He’s entitled to worry.”

Obi-Wan let that thought settle around him, waiting for it to make sense. The cool morning air was making him shiver, blowing across his soaked skin. He curled an arm around his leg and asked, chest getting tighter, “Kote is - is alright, yes?”

Wolv and Kix exchanged a look, and Wolv said, “Yes, he’s fine. He misses you.” He glanced to the side, and added, “Eyayah,” sharply.

“Oh,” Eyayah said, and pulled himself up onto the rock. “Here, he said to, um, to give you these. From him.”

And he took Obi-Wan’s arm, turned his hand palm up, and reached into the large pouch slung over his shoulder. Obi-Wan could only stare as Eyayah proceeded to draw out and give him a heavy necklace, made of cylindrical shells, all woven together, shiny in the early morning sun. Before he could say anything, Eyayah shifted and reached back into the bag, bringing forth the longest string of pearls Obi-Wan had ever seen, each one large and shiny and--

They felt cool and heavy in his hand. He had to bring his  _ other  _ hand over, and realized, after a moment, that even that wouldn’t be enough to hold them all. He could circle the length around his waist, perhaps three or four times, if he so desired. They pooled in his lap. He hoped they’d allow him to put the pearls back in the bag they’d used to carry them. He stared down at the mass and managed to ask, after a moment, “These -- what is for?”

“They’re for you,” Eyayah told him, sounding amused. “You wear them.”

“But not until Kote comes back,” Kix cut in, sharp. “They’re special.” Wolv made a thick sound in his chest, clicking a few times. Obi-Wan looked up at the three of them, painfully aware that he was, likely, holding something worth more than all the money he’d ever earned in his life put together.

He said, feeling like he might be dreaming, “But - but precious. Valuable. Worth so much, I can’t taking--”

“You’re not taking anything,” Kix said, nudging him in the leg. “He gave them to you.”

Eyayah tapped him on the other side. “You like them, don’t you? You accept them? It’s important.”

“Most lovely,” Obi-Wan said, trying to recover. He lifted the edge of the strand, looking at the pearls strung along it. “But--”

“Here, there’s this, too,” Eyayah interrupted, and held out, carefully, a necklace that was relatively quite small. Obi-Wan froze, staring at it, recognizing the shells, though the cording was different. He’d thought it gone, lost to the surf.

He reached out and took it, heart lurching sideways in his chest as he carefully wiped fingers across it and then settled it against his skin, fingers feeling numb as he tied a knot, settling the cord at the nape of his neck. “Thanking you,” he said, quietly, the weight reassuring against his throat.

“Of course,” Wolv said, quietly. “Now, I need you to tell me what happened, when the others came. Have there been more?” Obi-Wan returned his grip to the pearls - he didn’t know what to  _ do  _ with them - as he explained, as best he recalled, the attack and the aftermath. 

It was a relief, deep and sweet, to be able to tell someone what had happened, to simply  _ talk  _ to someone else again. His world had gotten so small and quiet, with Cody gone. He spoke to Boga, but that wasn’t the same. And Luke would - hopefully - visit him no longer, for the safety of them both.

He was aware that his Mando’a was neither smooth nor flowing. He didn’t know all the words he needed, but they were happy enough to provide them, even if he caught them grinning, sometimes, at the way he said different things. 

They all sobered when he cleared his throat, nothing else to tell, and asked, “How soon for Kote coming here?” 

They exchanged looks again. It was Wolv who answered, “There’s no way to say for sure. Hopefully soon. He’d made an alliance.” He shrugged. “We can only hope.”

“You must miss him,” Kix said, more gentleness in his voice than Obi-Wan had expected, and Obi-Wan flushed, feeling the red staining at his skin.

“Yes,” he said, the admission aching inside him, “but also - can’t staying here. My people. In town. They are…” He trailed off, looking for the words. It felt wrong to burden them with the knowledge, but…. They deserved to know, if they had come so far. He wouldn’t risk them coming to harm because he kept things from them. “Most angry, with me. Cannot going back.” He frowned, considering the dwindling stores he had and sighing. “Not sure how I’m feeding you all.”

Eyayah made a sweet, amused sound, and shoved at his leg again. “Don’t worry,” he said, “we can handle that.”

“I have a question about  _ you  _ eating,” Kix said, frowning when Obi-Wan looked over at him. 

“What?” Obi-Wan asked.

“Do you? Eat, I mean,” Kix asked, frown getting deeper before he turned and gestured at one of the guards, “Go and start gathering food for all of us and the riduur be’Mand’alor.” The last words he said Obi-Wan did not know, at least not the way he’d used them. He  _ knew  _ Mand’alor was the equivalent to “king” in English, or it was, at least, Cody’s title.

He asked, as Kix turned back to him, opening his mouth, “What is riduur?”

Kix blinked at him, eyes getting rounder and mouth matching them, after a moment. It was Wolv who answered, after a beat, “You should ask Kote about that.”

Obi-Wan frowned. “But--”

“You can eat food from the water?” Kix cut in, before Obi-Wan could make an argument about why they should provide him with more information immediately. It seemed wildly unfair to deny him the knowledge of a single word.

“Yes,” Obi-Wan said, frowning, “but not having to--”

“Good.” Kix looked him over again, and asked, “Why are you shaking?”

“Is cold,” Obi-Wan said, utterly baffled by the entirety of the conversation and increasingly sure he  _ was  _ dreaming. “From water and air.”

Kix made a sharp sound, and Wolv nodded. “Come on, then. You have things to make you warm, on the land?” And, when Obi-Wan nodded, they insisted he swim back to shore, following alongside him.

Boga barked and jumped around at the sight of them, wagging her tail wildly, tongue hanging out of the side of her mouth in delight. Obi-Wan scrubbed at her ears, grabbing a towel to wrap around his shoulders as he stood in the surf. He looked across at the three of them and asked, “How long are staying? All of today? Tonight?”

They exchanged looks, again, and Wolv looked back at him, arching his damaged eyebrow. “We’ll be here until Kote finishes his business and comes for you.”

Obi-Wan blinked at them for a moment, and then said, quietly, “Oh.”

“Now,” Wolv said, dragging himself out of the water, up to the edge of the tide line with a frown. “You tell me  _ everything _ about what’s going on in this town of yours. That’s a good place to start, anyway.”

#

It had ever been Kote’s instinct to handle problems quickly. There was a part of him that wanted, badly, to go find the enemy forces and attempt a rout. Striking back, going on the offense, made sense to everything in his heart.

But it would have been a fool’s choice, and he knew that with his head.

They had  _ help  _ coming, forces to supplement their numbers. His people were tired, worn down by so many long months of battle, by the recent losses. They needed to recover. They needed more hope than he could offer with just his presence.

Better - and smarter - to wait until the rest of the Togruta forces arrived. Better to tend to the wounded and the dead. Better to marshall their strength. Still, each day that they delayed left him tense and unsettled, unhelped by the dark dreams that plagued him at night.

He’d hoped, vaguely, that his dreams might be sweet after he left Obi-Wan. That he might dream of Obi-Wan’s smile and his touch. More often, he dreamed of Obi-Wan as some of the other humans he had seen, pulled down beneath the waves when their machines broke or failed them.

Kote had seen men drowned, the way the water filled up the space under their skin, the way they gaped and stared, wide-eyed, at nothing. His mind delighted to supply him with images of Obi-Wan, with dreams of some malcontent bringing his body all the way to the lines, with--

Kote woke with his heart lurching unpleasantly under his skin, over and over again, fighting back the urge to just--go. Make sure Obi-Wan was well and safe. He could not, and the knowledge burned inside of him, settling like a poison in his veins. 

Battle, he thought, would at least distract him. Instead, he was left to focus on brief spars with others so inclined, with planning, with  _ waiting  _ for the Togruta. The six who had come with him settled, a bit, as the days passed.

Ahsoka - unsurprisingly - settled the most quickly. She’d even decided to take part in their sparring exercises. She’d been bold enough to ask Rex to spar directly. Rex had glanced at him before accepting her offer, and Kote had shrugged. If she  _ wanted  _ to spar, he saw no reason to deny her, and trusted Rex not to cause a problem with their delicate agreement by doing her serious harm.

She was fast, Kote considered, watching them dart around each other. Faster than Rex, certainly, though she lacked his reach and strength. She made up for it by landing two blows to each one of his, the other Togruta all clustered together, watching with concern as Rex and Ahsoka flared their fins and struck out at one another.

Ahsoka had a curiously intent look on her face, sand stirring up around them as they drew together and moved apart, as she lashed out with her tail, catching Rex against the ribs hard enough to spin him. 

Kote clicked, sharp and amused, even more so by the little flash of blue from Rex and--

And that was when the low, deep warning thrums started vibrating through the water. Kote jerked his head around, hand already reaching for a weapon, seeing movement out in the water. “Fuck,” he snapped, because he’d hoped, over and over, that the Togruta would arrive before another attack came.

It was, obviously, not to be. 

The shark-riders came in a wave as the camp roused itself, grabbing weapons and shields. Kote shouted orders, Rex arriving at his side in a rush, his play fighting abandoned for the moment. Kote snapped, “Watch the Togruta. Keep them safe.”

It wouldn’t do to have the  _ rest  _ of their army arrive only to find the representatives lost in battle. Kote wasn’t sure how likely the Togruta would be to believe that story, or if they would readily assume that they’d been betrayed and--

It wasn’t worth the risk. Rex blinked over at him, protesting, “Kote--”

“You heard me,” he snapped back, and cut forward through the water, voice vibrating out of his chest as he sung orders, pulling his people together, preparing. They were, mostly, in place by the time the shark-riders reached them and then--

And then there was just the madness that came with battle. Kote ached, down his side, but that pain went away as he fell into the current fight. He snarled and buried his spear into the gut of one of the riders, unseating the woman. The shark, maddened already by blood, turned on her, black eyes rolling up.

Kote left her screaming, raising his voice to be heard over her, the water carrying the vibration, if nothing else. He turned to the next threat and the next and the next, scanning the massed forces arrayed around, above, and below.

He wanted - needed - to find the man in the bone armor, the man who had almost killed him. A part of him badly wanted to find the woman who had taken Wolv, as well, but he’d provided so little in the way of description.

The shark-riders all kept their hair shaved off; they all wore tattoos across their skin, either stained grey or naturally that color. They were, to Kote, near indistinguishable from one another. Except for the man in the bone mask; the leader, with his brutal spear. 

Kote wanted to kill the man, and not just because of the hurt the man had done him. The shark-riders seemed implacable. He couldn’t take them with the numbers he currently had. But removing their leader…

Well, it couldn’t  _ hurt  _ matters.

Kote found the rider in the mask as the water got murky, dark and clouded with blood, both from the merfolk and the sharks. A clear space opened, and he tensed. The man was hanging above the battle, his mount swimming in agitated circles.

Reaching him would require a surge through open water - dangerous - and Kote adjusted his grip on his spear, tensing even as the man’s shark circled once more and the man hauled it back, looking over and down.

Kote jolted as the man went still, looking down at him. He wondered what expression the man wore behind the mask, if he recognized Kote over the distance. If he recalled, at all, the man he’d nearly killed.

Perhaps the man  _ did _ , because he raised his spear and cried out - words that Kote did not understand - before plunging into the fray, aiming for the lines from above.

Kote burst into motion, changing the notes of the song, a warning carried from one throat to the next as his people picked up the adjustments, just barely carrying over the throbbing press of noise all around. The sound of a fight was always maddening: screaming and calls for help, bellowed challenges. 

The sharks were, at least, silent, for all that they’d worked themselves into a frenzy.

Kote had issued orders to kill as many of the poor beasts as possible. They were too unpredictable, too dangerous on the field of battle, and - anyway - it slowed down the riders. He shoved a body aside, aching all over, and snapped his tail, aiming for the man with the bone mask.

Killing him would disrupt the others. And, in any case, Kote wanted him dead, remembering the slide of teeth into his gut, the shark’s black, empty eye, the rider’s expressionless mask as the shark jerked Kote back and forth--

Kote had nearly reached the armored rider when the lines broke. 

It wasn’t, really, much of a surprise. 

The shark-riders had numbers on them. And Kote’s people were tired. He listened to the cries as some of the riders got through and swore, plans to reach the armored man falling away as he worked to flank the riders who made it past. They were, if nothing else, easier to kill from behind.

Conscious thought drifted to the side. There was nothing but the hard anger in his gut, the movement of his body, the drawn out act of slaughter and--

And before him, impossibly, Rex. He was surrounded by three of the shark riders - even if two of them were without sharks - and holding them at bay, bleeding heavily, snarling. 

Kote considered the distance in the back of his head, already moving forward even as he realized he’d not make it in time. Dread burned like bile in the back of his throat. It seemed wildly unfair that he would make it to the lines, that he could come to stand beside Rex again, only to watch his brother torn to pieces, but Sho’cye had never promised them fairness, only--

A blur of orange and white took one of the sharks from below in a rush of movement, obscured by the cloud of blood that followed blades sinking into flesh. Kote recognized Ahsoka even as he lost sight of both her and Rex in the dark red that spread through the water. He knew they were moving, could tell from the way the blood churned and roiled, but that could have meant anything.

And there was more screaming, all around him. He swore again, bitterly, and turned aside, back to closer battles, his chest tight and aching. 

He fought until exhaustion crawled up through his bones and then he kept going, until, somehow, blessedly, there was no more movement. And then, for a moment, he hung in the water, letting his gills work, looking at the carnage all around.

Bodies floated everywhere in the water, some his people, some the shark-riders. Some the sharks. Everything was tinged with red. Weapons - heavier - sank towards the sand below, dropped by the dead.

Kote tasted blood in his mouth and his side throbbed, a deep-down pain that was going to his head. He was aware of newer hurts, along his shoulder and down his back, but they felt far away. 

He turned, looking across the survivors, and shook himself. He could recover later, if there were time. At that moment, it was more important to shout orders to gather and remove the dead, to drag down the wounded, to find a location far away from the blood and the beasts it would draw.

Kote moved towards the last place he’d seen Rex, a swell of sickness twisting through his gut. He could not lose any more of his brothers, of his family. He should have sent Rex off, as well, he should have--

Rex was beyond a cluster of the shark-riders, all of them dead. Blood floated away from wounds on his tail and chest, though he seemed unconcerned with them. He was holding one of Ahsoka’s arms, instead, putting pressure on a wound there, and Kote could see his expression well enough. It was all worry, openly displayed.

Kote stared at the pair of them for a moment and decided that he needed to have a word with Rex as quickly as possible. But first, he considered, turning to look across the remains of the battle, there was work to do.

And they both deserved a moment of peace.

#

Obi-Wan spent most of the day at the beach, either in the water or on the shore. Wolv had question after question for him, about everything from the people in town, to the state of his cabin, to the history of the area.

Obi-Wan knew almost nothing about the history of the town. He’d not cared, really. People had come to the area and built houses and someone had been willing to sell him the cabin, and that had been all he worked to learn, really.

That seemed insufficient, so he shrugged and mentioned the pools along the coast. He tried to explain that there were rumors of underwater caves and pirates, which proved difficult. They didn’t really have a word for pirates, though they understood raiders who would take what they wanted by force.

Eyayah seemed more fascinated by the idea than his brothers. Wolv was only temporarily concerned, when he thought perhaps the pirates were still around. Once he learned they were long gone - if they’d ever existed at all - he moved on to other questions: how often Obi-Wan usually went into town, the exact distance to his closest neighbor, more and more, until Obi-Wan’s head throbbed.

Obi-Wan answered every question as best he could, knowing that he had not all the proper words to answer them. They were kind enough, trying to offer new words as they spoke, correcting his grammar often, for all the good that it did.

He felt clumsy with the language, in a way he rarely did. He wished he spoke it better, especially since he was having to speak so much with Cody’s  _ brothers _ .

They didn’t tease him about it, at least, despite the little smiles that played around their mouths, sometimes, when he spoke. He’d just have to do better. He focused on his pronunciation as Wolv slid deeper into the water, apparently with all the information that he wanted. Obi-Wan wondered what had happened to him, what had scarred him so severely, but would not ask.

He’d seen enough men missing pieces. He knew the cost of the loss and the toll it took, even after the wounds healed. Their people were at war. It was heartbreaking to realize that, even below the water, such conflicts had the same results. 

Kix followed Wolv, after a moment, leaving Eyayah behind, half out of the surf, asking more questions about pirates. Obi-Wan tried to describe the layout of the coast, what he’d heard of the underwater caves, as the day sped away. His questioning was interrupted mostly by Boga, who seemed fascinated by the sheer number of guests they had. 

“What’s its name?” Eyayah asked, as Boga sniffed around him again, dancing back when a wave came in. Obi-Wan didn’t know that she’d ever willingly go into the water again, not after the attack. The fact that she’d come in at all, to try to help him, still made his chest ache.

“Calling her Boga,” Obi-Wan said, stretched out beneath the lean-to he’d constructed earlier, when it became clear he wouldn’t be leaving the beach for the day. 

Eyayah made a sharp sound, lights flashing across his skin in quick succession, no color to them and only just visible in the bright sunshine. He looked over at Obi-Wan, grinning, and asked, “Why would you call her that?”

Obi-Wan shrugged. “Kote did naming her,” he said, and Eyayah flashed at him again.”What is meaning?” Obi-Wan asked, curious. He’d never given it much thought, before. He’d figured it was perhaps just a nonsense name, as so many people gave their pets.

Eyayah’s expression froze, for an instant, the amusement playing around his eyes giving way to a kind of abashment. He looked to the side, trailing his fingers through the sand, and said, “It’s like... Well. A word for a thing that has, you know. No purpose. No use.”

Obi-Wan blinked, considering that Cody had, apparently, named his dog something like “useless.” He hadn’t even hesitated, as near as Obi-Wan recalled. “For really?” Obi-Wan asked, and Eyayah nodded, glancing over to meet his eyes. Obi-Wan had to laugh, loud and sudden, startling Eyayah as he shook his head and sank back on his hands.

He’d known Cody didn’t much care for Boga, at least at first. He hadn’t realized how deep the dislike went. 

“May having to change meaning,” Obi-Wan said, as Boga came over to him, drawn by his laughter. She flopped across his legs, rolling her head to the side and heaving a gigantic canine sigh, put upon by the heat and tired of chasing birds, apparently.

“Maybe,” Eyayah agreed, and then pulled himself a little further from the water. “Tell me more about these  _ pirates _ .”

#

In the evening, Obi-Wan cooked some of the fish brought to shore over an open fire pit, and most of the merfolk even tried some of the results. They seemed curious about the cooking process, even if the heat of it seemed to bother at least Eyayah. 

He felt half-sure he was dreaming, but never awoke. The merfolk were still around, even when he returned to the cabin for freshwater and his notebook. He stayed on the beach as the sun set, drawing out his pen and, after a moment’s hesitation, bending over to write his note.

He’d almost finished, distracted, when Wolv asked, close by, “What are you doing?”

Obi-Wan blinked over at him, curling the notebook up a little, automatically. He’d gotten used to protecting what he was reading or writing when he was very young. The reflex had never gone away. He eased after a moment - Wolv could not even  _ read  _ what he’d written - and said, “A words. Some small thing. For Kote. I’m knowing he cannot reading it. But….” He trailed off, wondering how to explain that it was something his people did, wondering if Wolv would care.

Wolv looked at him, the light from the fire shining against his eye. He had been gone much of the day and seemed uninterested in offering any explanation for what he’d been doing. “Maybe I could help you write it so he could.” The offer made Obi-Wan’s breath catch in the back of his throat. “What’s it say?”

Obi-Wan blinked, looking down at it. He skimmed over the words, though he did not need to, really. He wrote nearly the same thing, every night, almost without thinking. He opened his mouth and shut it again, scanning over:  _ the time I spent with you brought me happiness in its purest form. Please do not think this is your fault. It isn’t. I loved you. I hope you are happy and _ \--

“Obi-Wan?” Wolv asked, as Obi-Wan read  _ it’s better this way, you’ll see _ and  _ I’m sorry, I tried  _ and felt a chill run down his back. 

He’d read notes like the one he’d written, before. The realization arrived from somewhere far away. He’d found one at the orphanage, when he’d been a child, left behind by one of their caretakers, the man resting beside it in his bed, almost looking asleep except--

Except that sleeping people were not so still nor so pale.

Obi-Wan had lifted the letter while other people rushed into the room, yelling and carrying on. He’d opened it and read it in the hall outside, as someone yelled to shut the door, to not let any of the children see.

He’d never finished any of the letters he’d written. Not one. Leaving them unfinished was… important. The closest he’d ever come was the  _ Goodbye _ , written in his own familiar, neat handwriting, at the bottom of the page. Only his signature was missing.

“What have you written?” Wolv prompted, and Obi-Wan jerked his eyes up, away from the neat words, marching all together across the page.

“Nothing,” he said, clearing his throat, something chilled and horrified in his gut. Obi-Wan carefully pulled the page from the notebook. “Nothing important.” And Wolv watched him, without saying anything, as Obi-Wan folded the page up and fed it into the fire beside him on the beach, the ashes stolen skyward, sent out over the sea.

A promise kept, for whatever it was worth.


	5. Chapter Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A brief note re: the Rexsoka, since I was asked about it last week. It's plot relevant (bet you can guess how) but the actual progress of the relationship does not occur "on-screen." It's all very, very much in the background.

Obi-Wan realized, as the hours passed with the delegation of the merfolk going nowhere, that he could not stay on the beach through the night. Or, at least, he didn’t  _ want  _ to stay on the beach through the night. He’d slept there before, after all, and hadn’t found it pleasant. Still, the idea of leaving all of the merfolk behind left him feeling itchy down his back. They - or at least Wolv - seemed equally bothered by the situation. They insisted at least one of them join him.

They gave him no choice in the decision of who their representative would be, and he ended up carrying Wolv up the path to the cabin.

Wolv either weighed less than Cody, or Obi-Wan’s strength had gotten better. He did not feel so difficult to carry. He looked curiously around the cabin when Obi-Wan went to fetch water for him, and asked, after Obi-Wan finished, “You did this for Kote?”

Obi-Wan nodded, pulling out his chair and sitting down, trying to mitigate the embarrassment of having one of Cody’s brothers in his cabin. It had to be…. Not what Wolv was used to, poor accommodations and--

Obi-Wan twisted his hands together, standing again, and Wolv asked, “What else did you do?” 

Obi-Wan flushed, thinking, burningly, of other things they’d done, of bending over Cody in the tub, of his hand beneath the water. He cleared his throat, set those thoughts aside, and spoke of the stories they’d shared, instead, flustered by the attention Wolv gave his words. 

Wolv wanted to know how Obi-Wan had treated Cody’s wounds, after that, which was… simple enough to explain. It kept Obi-Wan’s mind off of the fact that he had another merman in his bathtub, even if Wolv looked vaguely horrified by the time he finished.

It was a relief to finally feel exhausted enough to crawl into bed, aching at having someone so close again. His heart throbbed in his chest, constantly, with the desire for it to be Cody. He felt troubled even before he slept, so it was not much of a surprise, really, when Wolv woke him, shouting, from the nightmares that had crawled up into his head.

Wolv made alarmed sounds when Obi-Wan lurched from the bed and retched, helplessly, sweating and shaking with the force of the images in his head. “Most sorry,” he managed to gasp out, spitting down into the toilet and dragging his wrist across his mouth, still nauseous.

“No,” Wolv told him, something strange and tight in his tone - something Obi-Wan couldn’t read, not with his thoughts aching and buzzing - and Obi-Wan shook his head. It wasn’t worth arguing about. 

“Almost being dawn,” he said, instead. “I can taking you back to the ocean.” 

Wolv did not argue against the idea, and Obi-Wan lingered on the beach, watching him swim out to his brothers, before they all disappeared below the water. He wondered what they were saying about him, what they would all think of his weakness, of Cody, for sending them to look after him, about--

Obi-Wan swallowed more bile, stripped off his shirt and slacks, and blew out a breath. He slipped out into the water and set out for the horizon. He had not gone far before Eyayah joined him, off to one side, two other merfolk he’d not met before following at a further distance.

Obi-Wan paused, bobbing at the surface, and Eyayah followed suit a moment later, flashing him a smile. Obi-Wan blinked across at him, and said, “Are you...just to following me?”

“Yes!” Eyayah’s smile got wider. “You’re very far out. How much further are you going to go?”

Obi-Wan shrugged, glancing back at the shore. “I’m not knowing,” he said, “As most far as I can.”

Eyayah nodded like he understood, and prompted, “Should we keep going, then?” And it felt good to stretch out, to move through the cold water, past the point where his arms and legs started to ache, before finally turning back. He ended up pulling himself up on one of the smooth rocks before reaching the shore. He glanced over at Eyayah, who had shadowed him the entire way.

The other merfolk - apparently his  _ guards  _ \- surfaced shortly after, bobbing at the surface as he pulled one of his legs up, curling an arm around it and trying to get his breath back. Eyayah rolled to float on his back, and said, turning his head to the side, “Wolv wants to know why you haven’t just got another boat.”

Obi-Wan blinked at him and shrugged, shoving wet hair out of his face. “Is - is big value.” He wrinkled his nose, leaning back on one arm, knowing it wasn’t the word he was looking for. He caught a little flash of movement from the corner of his eyes and looked over, towards one of the other merfolk. He saw a little flash of blue before the man plunged back under the water. Obi-Wan frowned - puzzled - and continued, “Cost. Yes. Cost too much for me to paying.”

Eyayah nodded and opened his mouth, only to disappear jerkily below the surface a moment later. Obi-Wan wondered if he should worry. Wolv appeared in Eyayah’s place before the anxiety could set in, frowning.

“You can’t afford a boat?” he asked, a scowl set over his mouth, and Obi-Wan nodded. It was...embarrassing, to be reminded constantly that he barely had any money at all. But there seemed little point in trying to lie about it. “Alright,” Wolv said, a beat later, and was gone again. 

Obi-Wan stared after him, distracted when Kix grabbed the side of his rock and rose from the water in a splash. “We brought you breakfast,” he said, and laid two large fish across the stone with an unnecessarily severe look. “Is this enough?”

#

Kote helped to gather the wounded, ignoring the protests of the healers when he swam away, afterwards. The dead needed collected, as well. They had to be separated and properly handled. Their camp had to be moved. He took care of the necessities, ignoring the deep pain in his side and the more superficial wounds left by the attack.

Eventually, he gave in and allowed the healers to treat him, missing, with each touch, Obi-Wan’s careful hands. He’d gotten so used to looking at the fall of Obi-Wan’s hair across his cheek, as he bent over the tub, the way he’d speak softly while examining injuries, the brightness of his eyes--

The healers were not nearly so pleasing. Their care only made the ache in his chest get deeper, a reminder of what Kote wanted and could not have. 

He shoved that sharp pain to the side. Dwelling on it, on the way he seemed to be splitting apart inside, helped no one. He went to find Rex again, instead, despite the exhaustion beating down through his head. 

And it was fortunate that he chose to ignore the weariness in his bones. He found Rex tucked away, distant from their new camp, in a little corner of brilliant coral. He was speaking softly with Ahsoka, looking over the recently treated wounds on her arms.

Kote grimaced, frustration and regret clawing up through his throat even as he clicked, loudly, to make his presence known. They startled apart, looking over at him, and Kote tilted his head to the side. “Your people are looking for you,” he told Ahsoka, as gently as he could. The frustration he felt wasn’t  _ her  _ fault, or even Rex’s fault. It was….merely a product of the situation.

“What are you doing?” Rex demanded, after she had moved off, casting a glance over her shoulder as she went. “Is there some reason you’ve decided to--”

“It may be a poor idea for you to get so close,” Kote said, frustration curling up in his gut, directed inward and getting thicker by the moment. 

Rex blinked at him, expression hardening as his eyes narrowed. They were both, he knew, far too fresh from battle to have this conversation; to, perhaps, have any conversation. The fins down Rex’s tail raised a little, and he said, sharp, “I don’t think you have any right to tell  _ me  _ about who I shouldn’t  _ get close _ to. Yes, she’s a Togruta, but you swore yourself to a--”

“I had to promise a marriage,” Kote cut in, again, a sharper rush of anger down his back at the implication that he should not have chosen Obi-Wan. He could not, really, imagine choosing anyone else. 

Rex stared, mouth hanging open. It gave Kote no choice but to go on. “To the Togruta. To secure an alliance. They could not have me.” He gestured at his chest, the filled circle on his skin, grateful that he’d acted immediately to show his status. He’d wanted to wait to bring the promised betrothal up to Rex. To keep them focused on the fight. 

There was always the chance they would not survive, anyway. Bringing worries about marriage and treaties into the equation had seemed foolish, but… “What?” Rex said, voice quiet and sharp-edged. “Kote,  _ what-- _ ”

“It had to be done,” Kote said, looking to the side, mouth twisting with bitterness. “And it is…. Traditional. Boba is too young to be considered, of course, unless they are willing to wait some years yet.” And Wolv had already found the other piece of his heart. “But Kix or Eyayah--”

“Or me,” Rex scoffed, fins raising a little more. “You just decided for us--what right did you have to--”

“You know ‘what right’,” Kote snapped back, meeting Rex’s gaze and feeling his spine prickling. He should have told Rex earlier, or waited longer; he was already so on edge from the fight, already stinging with the absence of Obi-Wan, with worry and a feeling of being slowly pulled in half.

Rex drew his lips back from his teeth, spines rising from beneath his skin, and Kote felt himself respond. It had been a long time since they fought one another in anything but play. Rex said, “I don’t have to just go along with whatever  _ arrangement  _ you made, you can’t force me to marry someone I don’t want.”

He could have argued. Technically,  _ can’t _ was the wrong word. Kote very much  _ could _ . But he exhaled his frustration, and said, instead, “I wouldn’t. I--You can refuse, it’s true. You can go tell the Togruta right now what you think of the arrangement. Go tell them Kix and Eyayah might say the same, might say  _ I can’t  _ promise it. What do you think they’ll do?” 

Rex stared at him, something like horror passing across his expression. Kote watched him consider it, and then Rex turned to the side, and said, quietly, “They might not want me, anyway.”

“They might not,” Kote agreed, though he knew Rex would be the primary interest of the Togruta. As the next oldest, he would be more tempting than any of the others. That felt like a cold comfort to offer. “Just--you should be prepared for the possibility that they  _ might _ . Keep your heart free, if you can.”

He did not say:  _ perhaps you will approve of whoever they offer, in return _ . It seemed a particularly hollow statement, especially after the way he’d caught Rex only moments ago, though he wondered, still, about Ahsoka.

Rex kept staring off the side, a muscle in his jaw jumping. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse. He said, “Alright. What are we doing next?”

Kote exhaled and waited for his fins to settle back against his tail and for the spines to slide back under his skin. They did, as he spoke, quietly, with Rex about the aftermath of the battle.

#

Obi-Wan passed most of the long stretch of days that followed out on the coast, in and out of the water. He continued to write notes, having difficulty the first few evenings as he fought for new things to write. He settled on writing missives about what had happened, about Cody’s brothers. He fed the notes, still, into the fire.

His nights he spent in the cabin, with Wolv insisting on sharing the space, just in case.

They were, it seemed, well suited to room with one another. Wolv also had nightmares, more often than not. Obi-Wan was careful to wake him - he remembered the results of being close when Cody startled awake, the scars were silvery on his forearms - and stayed close as Wolv settled one night, the white visible all around his eye.

“Sounding hard,” Obi-Wan said, his chest aching for Wolv, for all the marks of abuse across his body.

Wolv twitched his tail, spilling some water over the side of the tub. “No worse than yours sound, believe me,” he said, voice a rough snap, harsh.

Obi-Wan swallowed, discomfited by the reminder that he still lacked the control to hold the nightmares at bay. He nodded, setting that aside, and said only, “Yes. Sorry.”

Wolv’s expression eased a little at the words; he relaxed his grip on the sides of the tub, sinking back into the water. He asked, after a long moment where the only sound was the wind off of the dunes and Boga’s agitated breathing, “How long have you had them?”

_ Too long _ did not seem to be an adequate answer. Obi-Wan pulled the chair over from the kitchen table and sat, scrubbing a hand across the back of his neck and shrugging. He’d started having the nightmares before the war ended. They’d followed him into peace. “Having for two years,” he said, clearing his throat. “Maybe for three?”

Wolv made a sharp little sound, turning to look at Obi-Wan. It was easier to meet his gaze, to hold it, than it was with anyone in town. Obi-Wan recognized some of the shadows that lived there. Knew them too well. Wolv said, quietly, “What--what do you see?”

“I…” Obi-Wan blinked rapidly, images he didn’t want in his head rising up and trying to swallow him. His dreams were all noise and the stench of blood and weight on his hands, on his shoulders, and--

_ \--Anakin screaming for him, begging that Obi-Wan _ \--

\--breathe, shaking himself, hard. This conversation was not about the parts of him that were broken and ill-fitting. He cleared his throat. “I am seeing the dead.” He blinked, scrubbing a hand across his eyes. “What do you seeing?”

For a moment, Wolv was silent. Obi-Wan prepared to leave the subject. He had no right to push, after all. But Wolv spoke, eventually, shifting again in the tub. “I see the living, when I see anything. It’s dark. Usually.” And, a moment later, before Obi-Wan could find the words to comfort him, “She said she’d take my other eye, too. The woman who did this. In some of the dreams she….does.”

Obi-Wan’s gut clenched, hard and cold. Bile burned in his throat. He reached out and touched Wolv’s shoulder, telegraphing the motion - it felt odd, to reach out, but Cody had always touched him, just a little - and felt Wolv lean into the touch, after a breath. He said, soft, “But you are getting away from - from her.”

“Yes,” Wolv said, his voice ragged. “I guess I did.” And then said little else, watching the sun come up through the window, before Obi-Wan lifted him and carried him back to the shore, where they were greeted by all the others.

#

The days following the battle were largely spent healing and waiting for another attack. Kote watched his wounds heal and missed Obi-Wan more with each passing day, remembering how careful he’d been, and remembering, too, the way he’d shivered and leaned closer, when Kote would touch him, after the assessment of his injuries.

His memories of Obi-Wan so often involved pleasure, things he’d never imagined. Before they’d met, he’d never even considered how good it could feel to have a mouth around his cock. 

And that thought was shiveringly, distractingly good. He touched himself, one evening, recalling the way Obi-Wan’s lips stretched around him, the way he looked up through his shining, impossibly bright hair, the sounds he made, the hot, wet perfection of his mouth, the way his throat worked when he  _ swallowed _ .

Kote’s hand wasn’t nearly so impressive, and it only made the ache in his chest worse.

He did what he could to ease and mitigate the ache. He took watches and planned; most of the planning involved Rex, who radiated chilliness whenever they had to speak to one another, though he at least remained polite enough. Kote wanted to shake him. It wasn’t as though they hadn’t all  _ known  _ that Rex was likely going to end up providing the next heir, that some of the burdens of the throne would fall on him.

And yet, Rex continued to steal moments with Ahsoka. He recognized the expression on Rex’s face as they two spoke with one another, or shared a meal.

It twisted around the frustration in his chest. He wouldn’t force Rex to set aside any feelings he’d developed, but it would have been so much easier for all of them if he’d managed to keep his heart to himself for just a little longer.

Rex had gone his entire life without finding someone. 

Kote was inclined to blame Sho’cye for the sudden shift of his emotions occurring at the least opportune moment. It seemed very much like something that would amuse Her. Kote didn’t comment on their closeness. He’d said what needed said. The rest was up to Rex. He weathered the sharp looks Rex sent him, the way Rex tended to shift closer to Ahsoka, instead of away, every time he was given a choice.

Kote spared a moment to hope, for his brother’s sake, that they both survived whatever else the war threw at them. He wished the two of them no ill, not if Rex really  _ had  _ found his heart, inconvenient though it could prove to be.

The war posed bigger concerns, anyway. The logistics of their situation required careful handling. He sent scouts out to track the movement of the shark-riders. Some of the scouts returned. Some didn’t. He built plans out of the information provided, adjusting the position of his armies, hoping, every morning, for the arrival of the Togruta forces.

He called for Ahsoka, alone, one day, pleased to see that most of her injuries had healed. She’d changed the decoration she wore across her forehead. He glanced across the shark teeth arrayed against her hair, and wondered if she’d collected them herself. 

Considering Rex’s expression every time he looked at her, Kote doubted it.

He set the question aside and asked, instead, “When do you think your people will arrive?”

She shrugged, arms crossed over her chest and mouth set into a thin line. She said, “They should have been here already,” with her fins flattening down all along her tail. The two blades she favored hung at her waist. 

Kote asked, because the possibility had to be considered, “Will they decide not to come?”

She looked up at him, blue eyes sharp and wide, and he appreciated that she did not lie when she said, “Maybe. I  _ really  _ don’t think that’s a possibility. But…” Kote nodded. It wasn’t the answer he’d hoped for, but it was one he’d considered more and more likely as the days passed.

At least he would not have to request that any of his brothers marry, if the Togruta did not come.

That would be a cold comfort as the war dragged on, as they lost more and more people. Still, he’d come up with plans, strategies. They’d need to be more aggressive, if they had any chance of success, but that meant any victories would be bought with blood and bodies. 

“I expected you to be angry with me,” Ahsoka said, dragging Kote’s attention away from battles yet unfought. He glanced over at her and found her watching him with her head cocked to the side. He made a questioning sound. “Because of Rex.”

He resisted the urge to scrub at his face. “My brother is his own man,” he said, shaking his head. “I have to consider your people, the arrangement we made, that’s true. I  _ will  _ hold to it. But I have other brothers.” He shrugged. “If his heart is taken, they will have to select another. I won’t force him to....set you aside, not if you two are in agreement.”

Her eyes got wider and her fins all quivered for a moment. He noted the surprise with a little arch of his eyebrow. He wondered what  _ she  _ thought had been going on, as Rex made eyes at her given even the barest of opportunities.

She rallied, after a moment, and said, fins all settling very flat against her tail, “Actually, um, I think there’s something you should probably be aware of about me--” And he wondered what more she would have said. He didn’t get the chance to find out. At that moment, cries of alarm went up from the sentries all around the camp.

#

They had, at least, some time to prepare for the onrushing shark riders. Kote snapped orders, arranging troops, wondering how heavy the blow would be, wondering where the fuck the Togruta were, wondering--

There was no time to wonder once the battle started. They fought, ugly and bloody, and Kote knew well enough he would have nightmares, later, about the young woman he watched get hit hard by a shark, tumbling away in nearly two pieces afterwards.

But that was later. For a time, there was only battle, and it crowded everything else out. Muscle and bone and the slow, creeping knowledge that there were surely too many. He found the rider in the bone mask - the leader - but could find no way to reach him, losing sight of the man just as Rex reached him, grabbing him and holding on--

Rex was bleeding from a wound across his brow, fins fully raised for the fight, spines out as he said, grim, “Kote, there’s too many.”

“I know!” Kote snapped back, though the lines were holding, for the moment, enough for him to wrap a rope of tendon around his left arm, to pull the tourniquet tight; he’d taken a deep wound on his forearm and was bleeding far too much. He turned back towards the fighting, and Rex grabbed him, tight, on the shoulder. “What are--”

“You should go,” Rex cut in, mouth a thin line, eyes white all around. Kote stared at him. “While there’s still a chance. Go back and start getting our people somewhere. To safety. I don’t know. You’re--”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Kote snapped back, because even if it were a losing battle - and he was not prepared to accept that it was - his place was  _ there _ , in the middle of it, not running and hiding. 

Rex swore, tightening his grip. He said, “You’re not meant to die here, our people--”

“Neither are you.” Kote dragged his arm free and then willed his frustration down. He reached out and curled a hand against Rex’s head. He wasn’t losing any more of his brothers. He wasn’t outliving any more of them. There’d already been too many stolen away. “Now, come on. Together.” 

Rex cursed again, but jerked out a nod, and adjusted his grip on his spear. And the shark riders came, until the water was almost like a wall, clouded and awful, until Kote’s heart raced and ached from the exertion, until, in the distance, he heard the deep, rumbling thrum of tremendous drums.

It took a moment for the sound to make sense. 

He turned to look and had to swim forward, out of a cloud of blood, peering through the disturbed water, making out movement and--

Someone changed the rhythm of the battle song flowing through the water around them, connecting them all together. Relief and elation seeped into the notes, passing news from those on the edges of the conflict to those closer to the middle, telling of others approaching and at speed.

Kote had never imagined - even when making the treaty - that he would be  _ happy  _ to see the Togruta army.

And yet, as they swept forward, as they came howling, their cries reverberating through the water, loud as a physical touch, hot relief ran through him. They closed around the shark riders, forcing the attackers to divert attention away from Kote’s people, forcing them to turn and address their flank, or be overrun.

Kote lifted his voice, and sang orders, and felt the tide turn in their favor, finally.

And, after, when the shark-riders had fled back - at least, those that remained of them - he ignored the wounds on his body and looked around for the closest Togruta. They were all mixed among his people, all of them eyeing each other warily, but there had been no fighting amongst them.

There wouldn’t be, immediately after the fight. He knew that. They were all too tired to fight further, too grateful for the assistance.

That did not mean there would not be disagreements, later. But that was a problem for the future. In the meantime, there had to be someone in charge of the Togruta. He needed to find them.

In the end, Shaak Ti found him, before he found her. She swam up from below, one side of her hair a tangled mess, drifting in the water instead of tightly secured. There was a wound down her jaw and throat, terribly close to the arteries and veins beneath the skin.

He nodded at her, opening his mouth, and before he could speak, she said, “An excellent victory, Mand’alor. But before you think to celebrate, I would know the whereabouts of my niece.” And she adjusted, pointedly, her grip on the blade in her hand.

Kote reconsidered the likelihood of another fight starting right away, tasting blood in his mouth, thinking about the past betrayals from the Togruta, thinking--

“Stop!” Ahsoka’s voice came from above. Kote glanced up, to where she was approaching at speed, bearing scattered hurts, but nothing that looked deadly at a glance. “I’m here, Mistress Ti, and I’m perfectly fine.”

Ti turned away from Kote immediately, attention on Ahsoka. Ahsoka all but slammed into her, the pair twisting in the water. Ti spoke first, her voice surprisingly unsteady as she said, “We’ve worried about you ceaselessly. We did not expect the Mandalorians to take you as security, it was--”

“No one took me,” Ahsoka said, shaking her head, “I snuck away to go with them.”

Ti froze, from just a moment, and then snapped, “You  _ what _ ?”

Kote stared at them both and said, feeling far too exhausted, all at once, and with an unpleasant sensation of things falling into place, asked, “What is going on?”

#

Several of the merfolk grew very fond of Boga, over the many days that followed, particularly Eyayah. Though Eyayah spent a lot of time away from the shore; Obi-Wan wasn’t sure where he  _ went _ . When he was around, he was always trying to play with the dog; they’d discovered the idea of “fetch” early on and would spend time tossing driftwood around. He also managed to coax her out into the water, where she’d splash around, trying to bite the waves.

Obi-Wan watched the two of them, absently, listening to stories about Cody’s underwater kingdom as Kix fussed over a cut on his arm. It had been accidental; Obi-Wan had fallen out of his head the previous evening, upsetting Wolv.

He realized, listening to Kix fret over the injury, that he was learning Mando’a very effectively. He’d known quite a lot of the language by the time Cody left, but surrounded by speakers constantly was helping with the pieces he’d missed. None of them knew English at all, though Eyayah seemed interested in picking up bits and pieces.

He happily picked up “fuck,” anyway, which had made Obi-Wan choke on nothing.

They were interested in some of the stories he told, and he spoke often to them, sitting out on a rock in the deep water, looking for words in Mando’a to properly convey what he was trying to express. He knew he was getting better at the language every day, but...

Obi-Wan flexed his fingers as Kix finished with his arm, and said, “My accent is very not well.” It had become...very obvious. It was, perhaps, the lesser of his problems with handling the language. There were body language components to it he couldn’t match exactly.

And there was no way for him to light up, no matter how hard he tried.

Kix glanced up at him, still frowning. “You definitely  _ have  _ an accent, though it’s going away,” he said, with a little shrug, and then he pushed at Obi-Wan’s leg. “I wouldn’t worry about it. I’m sure Kote likes it.”

Obi-Wan wrinkled his nose and considered that whether or not Cody liked it was beyond the point. He didn’t like...doing things poorly. The fact that he’d gotten Cody’s  _ name  _ wrong was particularly galling. He wasn’t sure why Cody had never bothered to correct him; the changes weren’t that difficult to make.

He was still irritated about it, late in the day, when he returned to the cabin, Wolv in his arms once more.

Obi-Wan froze, going quiet as he came within sight of his, well… his home, for lack of a better word. The place where he’d lived for nearly two years. The place where he’d lived with Cody. The place he’d slept and wept and--

Two of the windows were broken, he noticed, feeling dizzy, arms locked tight around Wolv. The cracks were jagged and ugly. Sharp-edged. And someone had smeared a - a word written with something - hopefully paint - across his front door.

Obi-Wan took a jerking step back, looking at the word, wondering if the perpetrators were still around, if--

But Boga wasn’t acting concerned. She always reacted to other people, either with a wildly wagging tail or a growl that echoed out of her large chest. She darted ahead to the door and then scratched at it, looking back over her shoulders at Obi-Wan, panting, while he--

_ \--tried to curl in to guard his head and the boy above him spat _ \--

“Obi-Wan!” There was a sharp note to Wolv’s voice. Obi-Wan wheezed in a breath, looking down at him, the world wobbly and out of focus. He needed to put Wolv down before he dropped the poor man. 

It was….something to focus on. He lurched forward, shouldering open the door, and froze again.

He hadn’t expected, really, that they would have stopped outside. And so he was not disappointed. All of his things were scattered around. There were broken plates and glass across the floor. It crunched under Obi-Wan’s boots when he took a jerky step forward, turning in a little circle, Wolv almost forgotten in his arms.

“I said: who did this?” Wolv snapped, and Obi-Wan blinked. He thought he might be ill and lurched to the tub, checking it for glass before depositing Wolv into it. He stumbled back again, leaning against the bed with his hip, sipping at the air, thinking about--

\-- _ blood in his mouth and _ \--

\--it was a surprise when Wolv started to sing, his voice not as smooth over the words as Cody’s. It reached into Obi-Wan’s head, anyway. He blinked over, feeling foggy, cottoned in from the clawing memories trying to dig their way into his head.

“Good,” Wolv said, his expression every bit as stern as Obi-Wan had ever seen it, “good, that’s good, Obi-Wan, keep breathing. Tell me who did this.”

Obi-Wan shook his head, looking around. He pushed away from the bed after a moment, kneeling to look at the scattering of his notebooks across the floor. They didn’t look...damaged, just thrown without care to the ground. He picked them up, carefully, and shook the glass from their pages.

“Obi-Wan,” Wolv said, sharper, and Obi-Wan looked over at him, dizzy.

“Oh,” Obi-Wan said, his voice coming from far away. “You are needing water, I’m can--”

“Forget the water,” Wolv interrupted, leaning forward in the tub, frowning. “I don’t need the water. You have to tell me who did this.”

“I’m not knowing,” Obi-Wan said, shrugging, stacking his books. “Someone being from town. I’m--”

He cut off, listening to Boga bark, suddenly, excited. He swore under his breath, jerking to his feet, adrenaline burning from his throat down into his gut. He looked around, grabbed the blanket off of the bed, and threw it over Wolv, snapping, “Staying  _ quiet _ ,” even as he looked out the shattered window.

The sight of Luke - walking up the path to the cabin as Boga ran out to greet him - cored out some part of Obi-Wan’s gut. 

But his hands, at least, were steady. This felt, to some part of his mind, very much like a killing field. He didn’t spare a look for Wolv, stepping from the cabin. He needed to intercept Luke, to keep him away, to make him  _ leave _ .

Luke had frozen a few steps away from the cabin, looking at the damage across the outside as Obi-Wan firmly shut the door. “Oh, God,” Luke said, gaze cutting over to Obi-Wan, his eyes wide and his face pale in the moonlight.

“You shouldn’t have come out here,” Obi-Wan said, heart banging at his ribs, meaning it with every ounce of his being. Luke blinked as Boga bumped against him, happy and panting. 

Luke stared at him, pale as a dead man, hands twisting up as he cut his gaze back and forth between the cabin and Obi-Wan. He said, quiet, “I heard you. Talking to someone else, some different language, French or something, is there--”

“You need to go home,” Obi-Wan said, heart lurching and aching with the knowledge that if Luke ran back to the town, if he told them that Obi-Wan had someone else in the cabin, they’d--

Something settled in Luke’s expression, around his eyes and mouth. “Are you hurt?” Luke demanded, which was not the next question that Obi-Wan had been anticipating. “Is - is your - is the person inside hurt? I - I heard what they did, but they said you weren’t here, and I--”

“Luke,” Obi-Wan cut in, jerking a step back towards the door when Luke moved towards it, keeping his body in the way. “I don’t know what you think you heard, but--”

“I won’t tell anyone,” Luke blurted, taking another step closer, and Obi-Wan’s back hit the doorframe. “I won’t, I--I wouldn’t do that, I only came out here to check and make sure you were alright, I promise.”

Obi-Wan wondered if Owen and Beru knew where Luke had gone. He wondered how much they’d care about  _ why  _ Luke had come out. He wondered how furious they’d be about their nephew coming to check on him, after some portion of the rest of the town had decided to - to ransack his cabin and paint--

“Thank you,” Obi-Wan said, as steadily as he could. “I’m fine. You should--”

“Can I meet him?” Luke interrupted, again, and Obi-Wan’s heart stopped, for a moment, under his ribs. Luke was staring up at him, eyes clear and full of - of something that made them shine. “Your - your…” He trailed off, looking to the side, and then said, quietly, “Your man?”

“I don’t have--”

“I’m the - the same way,” Luke blurted, all in a rush, staining with crimson across his cheeks. “My friend, Biggs, I wanted...” He waved a hand out to the side and cast his eyes down, sniffing after a moment. “I didn’t know what I was feeling, I’d never - with girls - but I do know, now, and….and I never  _ knew  _ I wasn’t alone. Before you. So I’m not going to tell anyone anything about you, I promise, I just want to - to meet him. That’s all.” 

“Fuck,” Obi-Wan exhaled, torn between the urge to offer Luke some kind of comfort and the need to get him away from the cabin, immediately, away from Wolv and the secrets wound all through his life.

He said, finally, shaping a lie that was so close to the truth, an explanation for why Luke could not come inside, “No one knows about him, Luke. Not the way they know about me.” He swallowed. It was true enough, anyway. “He’s like - like you. He’s  _ safe _ . Hidden. I can’t - I won’t…” He felt like he was drowning, the way he’d felt when the merfolk came for him in the surf. “I’m sorry.”

Luke stared at the ground for a minute, and then jerked out a nod. He said, sounding stung, “You don’t trust me.”

“It’s not up to me to trust you,” Obi-Wan said, quietly. “It’s not about my safety.” He made a sound, not really laughter, all bitter and jagged in his throat. He wasn’t sure he’d ever felt safe in his life. He wasn’t sure he ever would. “It’s about his. And yours. You don’t want this. They’d do it to you, too. If they knew. If they found you here.”

Luke frowned, arms crossing over his chest. He looked to the side and shifted his weight from foot to foot. He said, finally, “Alright. Alright, fine. But. But what are you going to do?” He looked over, finally, eyes shiny. “They’re not going to stop.”

Obi-Wan shuddered, ice moving through his blood. “I know,” he said, aching with the knowledge. 

“You need to go,” Luke told him, quiet. “Somewhere away from here. Away from people who know.”

“I know,” Obi-wan echoed, his heart a lead weight inside his chest, certainly not functioning the way it was supposed to. He  _ knew  _ he couldn’t stay, not safely. He’d known that for a long time, already. But he’d promised Cody. And he had nowhere else to go, and--

Luke nodded. He sniffed, again, and scrubbed at his nose. “I brought you some things, anyway. I was going to, even before I heard. Some food and stuff. Things I thought you might need since Uncle Owen won’t.... They’re back with the truck.” He cleared his throat. “I’ll bring them over.”

Obi-Wan exhaled, heavily, as Luke disappeared. He sagged against the door, breathing irregularly, and then yanked it open. Wolv opened his mouth as soon as Obi-Wan entered the room - he’d pulled the blanket down, stubborn man - and Obi-Wan hissed at him to stay silent, grabbing him uncarefully.

He  _ ran  _ down to the shore, breathless and half-falling too many times, barely feeling the weight in his arms, ignoring Wolv’s questions. He placed Wolv in the surf, breathless and dizzy, and turned on his heel, sprinting back. 

Luke beat him back. Obi-Wan expected that. He found the boy standing inside his cabin, looking at the damage with an expression on his face like he’d been hit in the back of the head. “What are you going to do?” Luke asked, holding an over-full paper bag, and Obi-Wan shook his head.

“I don’t know,” he said, and managed, without much more cajoling, to get Luke to leave, to go home. Obi-Wan sank down after he left, the desperate energy that had kept him going draining out of him, all at once.

He leaned against the bed, breath hitching in his chest, vaguely aware of the glass under his legs and his hands, jagged against his palms. He tipped his face towards the ceiling and sobbed, relieved, at least, that no one was around to see it. 

**#**

Obi-Wan roused himself, eventually, and set about cleaning the cabin. There was nothing to be done about the windows, but he at least threw away the broken glass. He scrubbed off the word they’d scrawled on his door as best he could, knuckles catching on the wood over and over, until the skin split.

Boga sat by him the entire time, whining piteously in her throat, no matter how he tried to comfort her. 

The sun was coming up by the time he finished. There’d been no time to sleep but he didn’t want to face his dreams, in any case. So he supposed it had worked out for the best. He made his way down to the beach, cold inside and drifting.

He set up his rods and reached for the buttons on his shirt, and had company, just like that, Wolv and Kix both appearing in the surf and calling to him. They wanted answers he didn’t have, about what had happened and why. 

He drifted through the conversation, barely remembering the answers he gave, watching them look at one another even as he slid out into the water to swim. He didn’t think as much when he was swimming, and, currently, there was no room in his mind for thinking.

“We need to take you somewhere safer,” Wolv told him, when Obi-Wan had swum as far as he could go, and turned to float, bobbing, on the top of the water. Obi-Wan stared up into the pinks and purples of the sky, not a cloud to be seen anywhere.

He said, quietly, “I’m not having safer anywhere.” 

He could run, it was true. Take his bike and Boga and go. But he’d never find Cody again. And the same thing would eventually happen, somewhere else. People could always tell there was something wrong with him.

“Then you’ll need to stay on the beach,” Wolv said, voice getting harder. 

“Why?” Obi-Wan asked, closing his eyes. “You can not helping me. Can not being around people, letting people see you. Is fine.” He took a breath and shifted in the water, preparing to strike back for shore, despite the heaviness in his limbs. “Will be fine. Worry not.”

He caught the disbelieving look on Wolv’s face, but then he was moving again, and there was nothing but his body and the water. He wondered where Eyayah had gone, as he reached the shallows, again. They’d taken to having what Obi-Wan thought of as breath-holding competitions early in the mornings, though any such challenges were severely one-sided.

Still, he was getting better and better at it, at staying under water with his breath held precious in his chest. 

He thought about asking one of the guards - there was always at least  _ one  _ of them close by - if they wanted to join him, but the only one nearby was the poor soul who never quite managed to look him in the eyes. The guard had a tendency to start glowing in blue if Obi-Wan said too much to him. The man seemed terribly embarrassed about it; Obi-Wan left him in peace as much as possible.

It seemed legs were fascinating to more of the merfolk than just Cody.

He could understand that. Things that were different always snagged the attention.

He spent the day on the beach, not wanting to return to the cabin - worried that someone else would have visited, that they would be waiting for him to come back, that-- 

He knew, well enough, the way people fed on one another, getting bolder and more violent with each little success. He swallowed, looking down at his stinging knuckles and--

\-- _ hearing laughter as _ \--

\--there was sudden splashing in the surf behind him, too much to be from the waves. He turned as Eyayah started shouting, “I found it! I found it!”

Obi-Wan shook himself, hard. Eyayah had intentionally beached himself, squirming up the sand, propelled by a few sharp movements of his tail. “What?” Obi-Wan asked, watching Wolv take an interest out in the deeper water. “You are finding what--”

Obi-Wan cut off as Eyayah yanked open the little bag at his waist, and spilled, across the sand, a pile of oddly shaped rocks, each one metallic and shiny and--

Eyayah looked up, grinning widely, and said, “I found the treasure you told me about.” He sounded delighted. “The pirate treasure. It’s just rocks, really, not anything valuable. But they’re kind of pretty, I suppose, aren’t they?”

Obi-Wan blinked, his pulse pounding suddenly very loudly in his ears. He crouched down and lifted one of the - the  _ pretty rocks _ , running his fingers over the cold, wet metal. He held it up to the sun, looking at how the light glistened across the surface. He asked, from far away, “Are you knowing what this is?”

Eyayah shrugged, spilling out some more of the  _ fucking gold _ across the sand. “Rocks,” he said. “There are a lot more of them, boxes and boxes of them. I just brought a few to show you. I thought you’d like to know that the stories were true.”

Obi-Wan curled his fingers around the hunk of gold in his hand, feeling dizzy. He laughed, just a little, a rasp of sound in his throat. 

“Obi-Wan,” Wolv said, his voice sharp, “what’s wrong? Eyayah, what did you do to him, he’s already--”

“He does nothing wrong,” Obi-Wan said, looking over at Wolv, his heart beating shakily against his ribs. “This is being--being lots of value, to mine people. This rock.” Obi-Wan had no idea  _ how much  _ the gold currently spread across the sand was worth, but…

“A rock?” Eyayah asked, wrinkling his nose up and lifting one of the pieces, frowning at it. “But it’s not even smooth.”

Obi-Wan shrugged, opened his mouth to try to explain, and Wolv cut in, “Is it worth as much as another boat?”

Obi-Wan blinked over at him, looked back down at the gold, and said, his voice coming from far away, “Oh, most yes.”

#

Wolv insisted that Eyayah take some of the guards back to the caves he had found immediately, to bring back as much of the gold as they could carry. He insisted, asking questions between the orders he snapped, that Obi-Wan take it and go to purchase another boat. “But,” Obi-Wan started, a dozen protests in his throat.

Wolv frowned at him and said, “No. You’ll go and get a boat. A  _ good  _ boat. And then you’ll come back here. We’ll stay close and wait for you.” And they would, none of them, be moved from the decision.

It felt a bit like stealing, taking the gold they provided, but Obi-Wan supposed it didn’t belong to anyone else. Whoever had hidden it down in the cave system was long dead. He ended up walking back to the cabin with a heavy bag slung over his shoulder, Boga happily following behind him.

There was not much, he considered, that he needed from the cabin. He dressed and looked over the small room. He gathered his books, precious as they were, and put them in a bag to go in the sidecar. He added some of the food that Luke had brought the previous night.

He took the bag of pearls, as well. He’d asked if Wolv or Kix should keep them, until he’d returned, and they’d disregarded the suggestion immediately. They were, it seemed, to stay with him no matter what.

He had no idea how far he’d have to go, really. Certainly, he was unlikely to find a boat in town. No one would want to sell him anything.

“Alright,” he said, to himself, stepping out and closing the door, looking at the broken windows and the freshly cleaned door. “I guess we’re going on a little trip, Boga.” It felt wrong to leave. He’d promised Cody he’d stay, but…

Well. Wolv and the others could tell Cody where he’d gone, if Cody beat him back.

And he was fairly sure Wolv might drown him if he went back to the shore without following orders. 

He snorted at the thought and reached down, scratching behind Boga’s ears. “Come on, then,” he said, and coaxed her into the sidecar. She happily put one paw over the side and panted expectantly. 

Obi-Wan threw a leg over the bike and looked over his shoulder, once, as he revved the engine to life. And then, his chest tight, worries about how everything might very well go spectacularly wrong curling up in his throat, he turned the bike northward, and left. He didn’t slow down as he drove through town, didn’t want to risk it. But he did nod, briefly, at Luke, watching him from the porch of the general store.

**#**

Kote had a headache. He’d had a headache for what felt like days or possibly weeks. In fact, he wasn’t sure his head had stopped hurting since he swam away from Obi-Wan. The headache currently had to do with an argument that didn’t even seem to involve him. Ahsoka and Ti seemed content to carry it out, all on their own, barely stopping to explain the issue.

Ahsoka, it seemed, was more than just a curious warrior. Kote had carried his own suspicions about her since they met, but having the confirmation - from her own mouth - that she was of the royal family felt different.

They’d had one of the Empress’s daughters with them for so long, it seemed. 

Ti claimed that they had all been incredibly worried for her safety. That the Togruta had thought her stolen away. Ahsoka tilted her chin up and claimed that she’d had a right to see what the people she’d have to live with would be like. That she’d had a right to meet her potential husbands and to see what they were  _ really  _ like.

Ti seemed furious, and Rex, who arrived as the conversation was ending, looked lost and then hurt.

Kote watched Ahsoka race off after Rex, when he darted away again, and turned back to Ti with a sigh. It was a headache he didn’t  _ need _ , though he was relieved, at least, that he wouldn’t have to arrange any unwanted marriages. 

Rex and Ahsoka seemed to sort out their situation among themselves, in the days that followed. At least, there appeared to be no tension between  _ them _ as the days passed. Ahsoka and Ti, on the other hand, still frowned at one another every time they were in the same space.

The argument followed them over to the healers, through tending to the dead, and onward over the following days. It lingered, raising tensions as they tried to discuss their plans for handling whatsoever remained of the shark-riders. 

Ti needed to be in each meeting. She led her people in battle, even if she was not their ruler. General seemed to be the most accurate title for her position. So, it made sense for her to meet with Kote and Rex, to discuss what they would do and how they would work together.

Ahsoka’s presence  _ also  _ made sense, after their initial argument, anyway. Kote considered Ahsoka, frowning and with her arms crossed. She was not the heir to the throne of the Togruta, apparently. But the Togruta would not have offered their heir. Not unless Kote had been an option, and perhaps not even then. She was a younger sibling, not directly in the line of succession, sent along with her aunt, and bartered away as part of the deal.

Kote ignored the entire affair as best he could. He was pleased enough that the problem had resolved itself, as far as he was concerned. He was more worried about the still-present threat of the shark-riders and about the end of the war.

About getting back to Obi-Wan.

Rex could, after all, slip off with Ahsoka after one argument or another. Kote was left with only frustration and the splitting, terrible yearning in his chest. “Fuck,” he snapped, finally, as Ti and Ahsoka sent one another a further dark look, at a meeting days after Ti’s initial appearance.

They both looked over at him, blinking, and he went on, “She’s here and she’s fine and she’s agreed to marry one of my brothers.” That part, he knew, may not have quite happened yet, but he was no longer willing to give them all the time they wanted to decide. “We didn’t steal her and we didn’t allow her to die. Is that not  _ enough _ ?”

Ti cocked her head to the side. She asked, curiosity in her expression, “What was that word you said?”

“It’s a - a word I learned,” he said, frowning. He’d been thinking of Obi-Wan. It had brought back memories of English. And, in any case, as far as profanity went, “fuck” was very satisfying to say. It had a conciseness lacking in many Mando’a curses.

“What’s it mean?” Ahsoka asked, and Kote really should not have felt different knowing she was a princess. He’d been a prince once. But he’d never had any sisters. They felt different than brothers, in some way.

“It’s a--it’s not important,” he said, fighting with his headache. “Now if these reports are correct, we know roughly where the shark-riders are. And their numbers.”

He watched Ti and Ahsoka exchange a look past him, one that did not appear, for the first time, strung with tension. Well, they could be amused by him if they so desired. If it got them to focus, he would not complain. 

And later, when a plan had been set into motion, Rex bumped into him and asked, “So, what’s this ‘fuck,’ word, then? You’ve said it before, when you first came back from the dead.” Kote snorted a laugh and shoved him back, glad that Rex appeared to be on teasing terms with him once more.

Kote shook his head and said, “It’s...profanity, that’s all.”

Rex flicked his tail, spiraling around him, “Learned from your human? Do they swear?”

“Everyone swears,” Kote told him, rolling away, looking over the gathered camp, thinking about the plans laid out with Ti, about the possibility of ending all of this, of stopping the death and the deprivations. Of seeing Obi-Wan again.

“And what’s it mean?” Rex pressed, coming to a stop beside him, hanging in the water. 

“Many things,” Kote said, because he’d used it for so much, as a fill-in word for the things he didn’t know, yet, when Obi-Wan was teaching him the language. It had just… fit in so many places. “It conveys frustration,” he added, after a beat.

“Practical,” Rex said, and Kote cut him a sideways look. “But not really what I’d associate with profanity.”

Kote knocked Rex with his tail, not enough to send him off to one side, and Rex grinned at him, all teeth, neatly fitting together. “It’s close enough to ‘shab,’” he said, and Rex flashed quickly at him, amused, opening his mouth again.

“You learned any new  _ Togruta  _ words lately?” Kote asked, and Rex made a sharp sound, reaching to shove his shoulder. Kote grinned, rolling away from him, flashing his amusement as Rex tried to catch him. They had something like a plan. Some ideas towards forward progress. And that was, for the moment, all he could ask for.

#

Obi-Wan had stayed within a radius of a few miles for so long. It felt strange to put his cabin and the little city to his back, to head north, with hot air whipping past him and tangling his hair into knots, Boga with her tongue hanging out, staring down the horizon.

They moved up the coast, looking for a large city. The landscape stayed sandy and it rolled, where they traveled. There were mountains, over to the east, huge and stretching to the sky. Obi-Wan had vague memories of driving over them, of switchback turns and drop offs on either side, plunging hundred or thousands of feet down.

It would have been easy to slip over the edge. But he hadn’t. He shook those thoughts away. 

They slept under the stars during their trip. No one complained about the small fires he made. He hunched close to the flickering flames, writing letters in the starlight and watching the ashes float skyward, so far away from the ocean. 

He mostly managed to avoid people, even after other traffic joined them on the roads.

Of course, he could not avoid people forever. Eventually, his road got wider and ran him right into a sprawling city, all noise and people. An itch developed between his shoulder blades almost right away.

The people in the little beach town had been more than happy to turn on him, had seen all the things wrong with him. And there had been so few of them. 

There were so many people in the town he’d entered. Obi-Wan swallowed, ignoring the weight in his gut. He didn’t have to remain around people for very long. He only needed to spend enough time to change the gold he’d been given into some more useful form of currency.

Then he could buy a boat. He could head south again, find Wolv and the others.

Perhaps Cody would be back by the time he arrived.

He blew out a breath, driving through the streets, eventually finding a store that claimed to buy gold. Obi-Wan frowned at the store-front. It was all fine glass, with all kinds of jewelry in display windows. He looked at the necklaces and earrings all on display against dark velvet and his fingers brushed absently across the shells around his neck.

He smiled, involuntarily, the shells warmed by so long against his skin, each one familiar under the pads of his fingers. He looked over at Boga, and said, “You’d better wait out here, girl, just until I’m done.”

She groaned and rested her head on the side-car. 

Obi-Wan dragged a hand back through his hair, trying to bring it to as much order as possible. He tugged his shirt straight and then shrugged. There was only so much to be done about his appearance. Hopefully, they’d be more interested in the gold than the way he looked.

The elderly woman behind the counter inside sniffed at him when he came in, mouth twisting up as though she’d bitten into a lemon. Her expression changed, soon enough, when he poured out a few of the gold nuggets in his possession. Obi-Wan ignored the itching down his spine, smiled at her, and asked what a fair price might be.

He left the shop with more money than he’d ever seen in his life. And they’d only taken a portion of the gold. He felt dizzy, all over again, and said, “Well, Boga. I suppose we’ve been successful, so far. Shall we visit the wharf?”

He knew, perfectly well, that the boat he’d had before barely deserved the name. It had been a paddle boat, really. The ships in the wharf were all entire degrees of magnitude larger. Some had sails, others had large engines at the back. Obi-Wan looked across all of them, and ignored the tightness in his gut from the knowledge that he had no idea how to sail or operate a boat. 

Not really.

He’d never needed the skills before. But how difficult could it be, really?

And he didn’t have a choice. He couldn’t very well bring someone back with him. 

The sound of the water and even the sea birds was comforting, at least. Even a few days away from the sound had left him feeling disconcerted, as though the world were wrong in some fundamental way. He shook that thought aside, and called Boga out of the sidecar as they walked through the wharf.

He wondered how one went about purchasing a ship. There didn’t seem to be stores for them. In the end, he asked around, until he was directed to a man who - apparently - was interested in selling his ship.

Obi-Wan found him towards the end of the wharf. The ship seemed...very large, to him. It was certainly bigger than his cabin. In fact, it appeared to have a cabin-like structure built into it. There were no sails, but there was an engine at the back. 

There was a man on one of the boat’s decks. There appeared to be two of the decks. One was on top of the cabin. There was a wheel and other controls up there. The larger deck was beside the cabin structure. It was lined with benches. Obi-Wan wondered, frowning at the space, if his motorcycle would fit.

“Excuse me,” he called, “I hear you’re interested in selling your boat?”

And the man jerked his head up and over, blinking at Obi-Wan. He had dark skin and a mass of hair, a smear of oil or grease over the bridge of his nose. He frowned down and said, “You might have heard right.”

“Excellent,” Obi-Wan said, working his mouth into a smile. “I’m interested in buying it.” He glanced over the craft again and added, “Is it very hard to operate?”

The man - who called himself Quin - kept shooting Obi-Wan disbelieving looks as they discussed a price and the operation of the boat. He agreed, upon finding out that Obi-Wan had never operated such a craft before, to provide Obi-Wan with basic instructions.

He even helped Obi-Wan load the motorcycle onto the boat. It fit, if wedged in sideways, into the lower deck. There were places for fishing rods to attach along the deck, which would be useful, Obi-Wan assumed. He was not, he acknowledged, thinking all that far ahead.

He just wanted to be out of the city, away from the crowds and the noise and the itching in his bones, which had gotten worse and worse through the day. He held tightly onto his control, ignoring the irregular beating of his heart as he handed over a large chunk of the money he’d gained earlier in the day.

He didn’t quibble over the price Quin asked. It wasn’t as though he’d  _ earned  _ the money, in any case, and he had no idea how much a ship ought to cost. He had the funds to pay for it, and so he did, doing his best to remember everything Quin told him about operating the craft.

“Listen,” Quin said, eventually, eyeing Obi-Wan as Boga ran around the ship, smelling everything, “I could come with you on your first trip. You know, just to make sure you understand what you’re doing.”

Obi-Wan shook his head, flashing Quin the best smile he could muster. “I’m sure I’ll be fine,” he said. “How difficult can it be?”

Quin only stared at him for a long moment, and then said, with a sigh, “You  _ do  _ know how to use a radio, at least, don’t you? Just in case you change your mind?”

Quin had shown him the radio transmitter in the cabin during their brief tour of the ship. It didn’t look exactly like the equipment Obi-Wan had grown familiar with during the war, but it was close enough. He’d figured out how to work a VLF radio in far worse conditions than an enclosed cabin, where no one would be shooting at him.

He nodded. “Yes, I’m familiar with the operation.”

Quin sighed. “We better get you  _ familiar  _ with standard emergency codes.” And they spent the rest of the afternoon discussing this and that about the ship, information that Obi-Wan did his best to commit to memory. 

“Hey,” Quin said, finally, when he ran out of things to tell Obi-Wan, standing by the edge of the ship with a little frown on his face. “Are you in some kind of trouble or something, mister?”

Obi-Wan considered that, the ever-present lump in his gut getting heavier. He was almost certain he’d been in some kind of trouble his entire life. Currently, though… He shook his head. “No, of course not, what makes you ask?”

Quin arched a brow, arms crossed over his chest. “Well,” he said, “you bought my boat with a wad of cash and you want to leave even though you have no idea what you’re doing.” Obi-Wan stared at him, and he blew out a sigh. “Look, I just don’t like feeling like I’m sending you out to die, alright.”

“I’ll be fine,” Obi-Wan reassured him, “and I appreciate all of your help, of course.”

Quin was still frowning on the dock when Obi-Wan backed the boat away from the moorings. He discovered he didn’t like steering it almost immediately, but it wasn’t as difficult as he’d feared it would be. He’d never very much enjoyed driving motor vehicles, either. 

He waved back at Quin, standing there with his arms folded, and turned the boat and his thoughts south.

#

Obi-Wan managed to steer his boat - apparently named the  _ Memory  _ \- down the coast. He kept well away from the shore, concerned about rocks and shoals. Despite the brief instruction he’d received, he really had little idea how to read the charts kept on the boat. He didn’t know precisely what they meant or how they correlated to the boat’s position.

Still. He knew he needed to follow the coast and he would eventually end up at his destination. He kept the land off to his left and traveled. He stopped at smaller cities with docks on the way, in the evenings, where he filled up on fuel and some supplies and gathered additional pieces of instruction, including an instructional book.

And, eventually, he made his halting way towards the little cove that had been his, and still was, he supposed.

He approached in the morning, puzzled by the haze of smoke along the horizon. He cut the engine well away from the cove, unsure exactly where the merfolk were. He didn’t want to either frighten them or hurt any of them, with the boat or the propeller at the back.

He left the boat drift, sliding down from the upper deck to join Boga at the bough of the ship. The sun was only just coming up, painting the sky pink and purple, smeared all in grey by the shore. He looked out across the dark sea, leaning over the edge, wondering if he ought to call out, and a familiar figure broke the surface of the water, perhaps twenty feet away.

“You’re back!” Eyayah called, waving one arm out of the water. He said, a moment later, “You got a  _ big  _ boat.”

“Yes, it is most bigger than the other boat,” Obi-Wan said, relief unfurling inside his chest even as he sat on the deck, throwing his legs over the side and leaning forward. He asked, heart beating over-fast, “Did Kote…?”

Eyayah’s expression lost some of it’s delight right away. He shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said, swimming closer. “He hasn’t arrived, yet.”

Obi-Wan swallowed the tight ache in his throat. He hadn’t really  _ wanted  _ Cody to get back while he was gone, but… But he would have given so much to see Cody again, to know he was safe and well. The constant waiting, not knowing if Cody were even alive, was--

He couldn’t think about it. It made his breath get faster and his heart erratic. He didn’t want to have a fit in front of Eyayah. 

He asked, trying to distract his thoughts, “What is that?” and gestured towards the horizon. Eyayah went still for a moment, expression tightening. Obi-Wan felt a trickle of ice down his spine. He asked, “What? What happened?”

Eyayah grimaced, slipping down until he was almost completely in the water and then bobbing back up, so at least his mouth was above the slow roll of the surface. He said, “There’s a fire. At - at the building where you used to live.”

Obi-Wan stared forward, a knife of cold twisting in his gut. His mind raced along, considering that information and coming up with assumptions and questions he didn’t like very much at all. He said, quietly, “The town people. They burn it?”

Eyayah looked to the side and then nodded, sharply. “We heard them,” he said. “I’m sorry. We couldn’t stop them.”

Obi-Wan looked down at his hands and curled his fingers in tight when he noticed the trembles. He hadn’t--the cabin itself hadn’t been anything special, really. It had barely been standing. But he’d lived there with Cody. He’d tended Cody’s wounds and held him close, kissed him, sang with him, danced--

And they’d burned it, the smoke coloring the horizon like a bruise.

He wondered, breath hitching as his throat tried to squeeze shut, what they’d have done if he’d been there. He wondered, tasting smoke on the air, if they’d have started the fire with him inside, if they’d have--

“Obi-Wan!” Eyayah cried, sharply, as cold water closed all around him. The impact of the surface was a shock, knocking Obi-Wan back into his head, even as hands grabbed at him. His first instinct was to shove away at them, thinking about--

\-- _ hands pushing against his shoulders, trying to hold him in _ \--

\--the air, all around his face as he broke the surface of the water, aware of hot pain in his knuckles. He kicked, gasped at the air, listening to Eyayah shout something at a distance. 

He blinked, trying to clear the water out of his eyes, and there was a tremendous splash, almost right atop him. He swore, choking, and tried to make sense of the sudden mass of fur and splashing as Boga bumped into him, making high noises in her throat.

He reached out to her, grabbing a handful of her fur. She barked, and, apparently, decided that she did not mind the water so much. She dragged him forward, away from the boat, paddling towards nothing in particular.

Obi-Wan let her go, shaking his head, heart still beating wrong in his chest, but, at least, firmly in the present again. The water was cold and familiar. Steadying in it’s own way. “Are you alright?” Eyayah demanded, popping up in front of him, but staying a little ways back. His cheek was reddened. Obi-Wan was mostly sure it hadn’t been, a moment ago.

Obi-Wan jerked out a nod, automatically, though he could not quite feel his hands. That, he knew, was not from the water. The fits still made him go numb, sometimes. “I am fine,” he said, hearing the way his own voice hitched, and Eyayah stared at him, for a long beat.

“Stay here,” Eyayah said, a moment later, and disappeared beneath the water. Obi-Wan turned to look at the boat, shivering. There was, he noted, gratefully, a little stair over the side. He’d pulled himself out of the water by the time Wolv popped to the surface with Eyayah.

“I got a boat,” Obi-Wan said, sitting at the top of the little stairs, dripping wet and trying to stop shivering. He gestured out into the water, and said, “Can you getting Boga, please?”

They brought her back, eventually. By the time they had, he felt steadier. Drying off had helped. Actually getting Boga back  _ onto  _ the boat was a challenge, but they managed eventually, at which point she shook, wildly, splattering him with water.

Obi-Wan shook his head and sat on the side of the craft, legs over the side, as Wolv swam up. Wolv said, looking up at him, “I’m sorry we couldn’t save your home.”

Obi-Wan shrugged, avoiding looking towards the smoke on the horizon. “It was not a home very much,” he said. “You saw.”

Wolv frowned, gripping one of the rungs of the ladder with one hand. He looked worried. “No one bothered you?” he asked.

Obi-Wan shoved back his hair - drying in the air - and nodded. “I had no problems. But…” He glanced, only for a moment towards the shore. “I do not know, now, what to doing…” He couldn’t  _ just  _ stay on the boat. He’d run out of water quickly, if nothing else. And fuel would be a problem. He doubted anyone in town would be willing to fuel him up.

Wolv smiled up at him, a brief flash of teeth, “I’ve been reconnoitering the area. We’ve found some likely areas that you can reach, with the boat. Places where I can keep you safe.”

Obi-Wan swallowed. The idea of being safe ever and always felt like someone else’s dream. He said, quietly, “But, Kote…”

“We’ll make sure he knows where we’ve gone,” Wolv said, reaching up and gripping his knee, just for a moment. “Worry not.”

#

It felt good to win battles, one after another. Far better than losing, anyway. But there was a grim necessity to each action, no joy to be found in the fight or the aftermath. Only satisfaction and still, even in victories, the dead to mourn.

Kote had hoped that perhaps the assistance of the Togruta would simply… end things. Right away. But they had to push the shark-riders back, towards wherever they’d come from. They seemed singularly uninterested in suing for peace, even as their forces dwindled.

Mandalore’s territories were large and they had lost much ground along their borders, entire cities wiped away and emptied. Kote moved through what remained, as they pushed further outwards, aching in his chest at the remains left untended, at the evidence of what had been lost. 

Days slipped away into weeks of travel and fighting. Kote kept expecting the ache inside his chest to dissipate, but it never did. His heart  _ stung _ with the feeling that it was only half-complete, that part of it was far away.

He tried to set aside the pain, focusing on the battles, on planning with Rex and Ti. 

Even his dreams offered him no peace. He dreamed of Obi-Wan, often, but only some of the visions were pleasant. Sometimes he woke with a feeling of sweet joy, the memory of Obi-Wan’s body against his lingering in his thoughts, reminding him of the distance between them.

More often he woke to disjointed images, to half-remembered fragments of dreams that left him breathing too fast, shakily. In the worst of them, he saw Obi-Wan dissolving to nothing, his eyes the last thing to dissipate into the air.

Kote wished, desperately, that he’d had  _ some  _ word about Obi-Wan, after the attack led by Thrull. He could only trust that Wolv and Kix had reached him and ensured he was safe. There was nothing else he could do; leaving and going back was not possible.

The concern ate away at him, always lingering in the back of his mind as they pushed onward and onward, until they went days without seeing any sign of the shark-riders. Kote pulled the army to a stop - moving quickly was difficult in any case, they had to hunt and gain provisions for so many - and sent scouts out, instead.

They were left with nothing to do but wait, his people working with the Togruta to take one of the great whales that passed through the area, so at least they would have food, for a few days. He sent more hunting parties out, as well. 

The combined armies were, in fact, looking thinner by the day. Too much had been destroyed in the area where they stopped. There weren’t settlements and people to help provide some of the sustenance they needed.

He looked across the encampment and wondered, realistically, how much further he could push them, how much longer they could be asked to stay. He was contemplating the problem when the first of the scouts he’d sent out returned, coming hard and fast, calling warnings and alarm as they went.

Kote swore, loudly, moving to meet the scouts. The woman in the lead was bleeding heavily from a wound beneath her arm, her color bad and her eyes going flat. Still, she managed to speak, as he gripped her, holding her steady in the water. “We found them,” she gasped, shaking under his hands. “So many of them. All together. They’re coming, here.”

Kote turned, intending to call for a healer, and felt her shudder in his arms. He looked back to find her limp, her hair fanning out in the water, her eyes open and sightless. There was no time to mourn her. Perhaps there would be, later, if they survived.

For the moment, there was only preparing for the battle, calling to Ti, bringing their people together as, in the distance, the water darkened with the presence of the shark riders, a huge mass of them. All gathered together, the scout had said.

Kote looked at them, adjusting his grip on his spear, and hoped that meant that, if they slaughtered their way to winning the day, there would be no others to harass them. He rolled his shoulders back and raised his voice and listened to the song curl up, all around him, and swore, his heart beating sure and steady in his chest, that he’d take the general organizing the riders, one way or the other.

#

Kote had always found a kind of peace in battle. There was no room for worry when people were trying to kill you. The worry came later. 

Kote did not worry when he managed to break through the lines of the shark riders, Rex and a handful of others at his side. They’d been breaking the lines regularly, since the Togruta joined them. The battle raged terrible all around them, the water tasted of blood, screams marred the song they sang.

All of that Kote pushed to the side, keeping his attention fixed on the figure that had grown so familiar on the battlefield, the shark rider wearing the mask of bone, the - the exterior skeleton built of flesh and coral and Sho’cye alone knew what else.

The man couldn’t be allowed to escape again. Kote felt it in his bones, directing the full force of his energy towards the man, leaving death and destruction in his wake, leaving his people to face the bulk of the army as they carved their way forward.

The man saw them coming and tried to turn at bay, the scarred shark he rode restrained, but only barely. And Kote snarled, feeling a sharp twist of victory in his gut, as Ti’s forces closed in behind the man, cutting off his escape.

The sight of the man always brought unwanted memories back into Kote’s head, the icy-hot slide of teeth into his gut, the jerking, nauseating pain that had come as the shark shook his body, the dizzy blackness closing around him, even as he drove his spear into the shark’s gills and twisted it, tearing it to shreds, preventing it from biting him cleanly in half.

The injury was the worst he had ever taken. He had been sure, at the time, that it would be fatal.

But he had lived and it had brought him to Obi-Wan. 

There was something that ached in the knowledge that he would have never met Obi-Wan, had not the shark-riders come, had he not gotten cut off, had he not been nearly torn to pieces by the man he had finally,  _ finally _ , managed to corner.

That thought kept creeping back, as he sang orders to Rex and the others with him, as the man behind the bone mask snarled and swore, cursing them all. He fought desperately, at the end, viciously, cutting into the bodies of those Kote had brought with him, until, finally, Kote managed to get beneath his guard, shoving the tip of his spear into the man’s gut and  _ up _ .

The man screamed. Guttural. Agonized. 

Kote looked across into his eyes, crazed, behind the mask he wore, and thought of all the dead, of his brothers, his  _ people _ . The man cried out, loud, wrapping one hand around the spear and reaching for Kote with the other, claws shaking, all that had once seemed monstrous and threatening about him falling away.

Kote could find no words to say, in that moment. There were no fine speeches or clever vows. He only shoved the spear in deeper, twisting it, and felt exhaustion settling over him, even as the man went limp.

He could hear shouting, all around him, the rhythm of the song changing as Rex sang of the death, first, the others picking up the tune and spreading it. 

The song of the shark riders changed, as well. Kote heard it souring, watched them react to the changing in the music, many of those closest recoiling back. Some of them lost control of their sharks, the beasts either charging towards the closest source of blood or shooting off into the darker waters all around, without hesitation.

Kote jerked his spear free, ignoring the exhaustion in his bones, and reached for the man’s helmet, pulling it off.

The man beneath looked old. Hollow-eyed. He’d done something to his eyelids, or perhaps been born without any, but Kote didn’t think that to be the case. He’d cut away at his lips, too, revealing his sharp teeth, some of them broken.

Kote felt bile in the back of his throat. He looked away from the dead man and reached for the long, ornate spear the man had carried. Already, closer shark riders were lunging for it, trying to get their hands on it. Rex skewered one, even as Kote tested the heft of the spear, scowling.

He curled his tail around one end of it, gripped the other with both hands, and twisted, wrenching with all the muscle in his back and tail. The  _ crack  _ when it snapped reverberated out through the surrounding water, and he smiled, grim, grabbing both pieces.

Around him, the shark riders went quiet, their song cutting off. Those closest jerked back from him, their fins and tails thrashing, alarm and horror written all across them. One of them, a woman who seemed made of all sharp edges, started singing again first, discordant and agonized.

The others picked up the song almost at once, spreading it back through the ranks, all of them twisting in the water.  _ Leaving _ . Kote watched them turn and  _ flee _ , with victory and relief twisting together in his gut.

“Do we chase them?” Rex asked, swimming up beside him, battered but alive.

Kote considered it, his blood hot and surging in his veins. There was something tempting about hunting an enemy down, until they were too exhausted to swim any longer. His people were tired, too. He knew it. But letting the shark riders re-group would serve none of them, in the long run.

The riders were currently disheartened. Confused. Frightened, even, perhaps.

“Yes,” Kote said, adjusting his grip on the broken spear. “With as many as are able. Set a division to tend the wounded and hold this point. The rest will come with me.”

#

Obi-Wan grew used to waking up on his boat, as the days slipped away. Wolv far preferred he sleep  _ on  _ the water, where Obi-Wan supposed merfolk circled the boat through the night. The amount of concern still felt unnecessary, but every time he tried to tell them that, he was soundly ignored.

He spent most of his time in the water, anyway, bringing the boat into one little cove or another through the day, where he could let down the anchor and allow it to bob on the waves. He listened to all Eyayah’s stories about the pirate caves, and listened to Kix make pleased sounds as he - apparently - gained a little bit of weight, and he talked to Wolv, often, under the stars.

The weeks should have been, he assumed, peaceful.

But there was a tension in his ribs that would not go away, a weight that prevented a feeling of peace and contentment from ever settling into his bones. He could not forget - for longer than a moment or two - that Kote was somewhere far away, making war against an enemy that the others haltingly described to him. 

Worry hounded him through each day and each hour, from the time he woke until he settled on the upper bridge of his boat, a notebook open in his lap and a pen in his hand. He wrote careful notes, every night, telling Cody what had happened, where they’d gone, how worried he was….

And then, carefully, he struck a match and fed the paper to the fire, and hoped.


	6. Chapter Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the final "chapter." There's a brief epilogue to follow! Thanks so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed the ride!

The chase after the shark-riders felt more like a hunt than a rush to war. Kote’s people were quiet all around him, intent, expressions set and sharp for all that so many of them were hurt. The taste of victory - like blood on the water - always granted an extra share of energy. 

Kote just wanted to end whatever was left of the war. He wanted it to be over and done, to be able to take his people home, those who yet lived, anyway. He wanted there to be peace, an end to the slaughter.

He wanted, so badly he ached with it, even through the haze of exhaustion, to see Obi-Wan again.

One of the forward scouts drew to an abrupt stop ahead of him, singing back over her shoulder. Apparently, a single figure approached, swimming back towards them. Kote ordered a full stop, ordered his people to prepare weapons. He moved forward to come alongside the scout.

He watched one of the shark-riders approach, without a shark. He thought he recognized the woman - she was grey-skinned, like so many of the shark-riders - with particularly livid red tattoos across her face and down her throat.

She was carrying something, he noted, holding it in one hand as she approached.

She came to a stop well away from them, looking across with pale eyes. Her head had been shaved completely, allowing for more tattoos across her scalp. Kote wasn’t paying much attention to  _ her _ head, however. Most of his attention was on the one she was holding in her hand, severed neatly from its body.

The man had been old, whoever he was. Kote didn’t recognize him at all. He was grey-skinned, as well, but with a shock of white hair and a white beard. His eyes and mouth were both open in death, as though he’d gone screaming to his end.

“I’ve come to speak to whoever leads your people,” the woman called across the distance, her voice sharp-edged and hard as rock. “On behalf of what remains of mine.”

Kote stared at her a moment longer and then nodded. “Approach, then,” he said, “and speak.”

#

The woman called herself Ventress. She said - handing over the head as she got closer, guards closing in all around her - that the man she’d killed was named Dooku. It meant absolutely nothing to Kote. He found he didn’t  _ care  _ about the man’s name. “He wanted us to turn and fight again,” she said, tone flat as her eyes, “to kill as many of you as possible.”

Kote glanced at the dead man, only for a moment, and returned his attention to Ventress. She seemed never to blink. It was….disconcerting. “You disagreed?” he asked.

Her smile showed all of her teeth. “Vehemently,” she said. “This campaign stopped being sensible after you brought in the Togruta. But there were those who...refused to see that.” She shrugged, her narrow shoulders rising and falling. “They are...no longer in a position to issue orders.”

Kote’s heart beat a little faster in his chest. He fought for composure and achieved it, raising his eyebrows. “Do you come to surrender, then?”

She scoffed. Her fins did not rise or fall. They appeared fixed, in fact. The riders resembled the sharks they had tamed, far more than Kote’s own people. It made it more difficult to determine what she was feeling - if she were feeling anything - but Kote had gotten used to reading emotions without the help of body language.

Obi-Wan had seen to that.

She was angry, he thought. But not just angry. Tired. Afraid. She said, looking to the side, unblinking still, and said, “Call it what you want. We’re done fighting a hopeless war. We’re going home.”

“Just like that?” Rex asked, from Kote’s right, his fingers curled tight around his spear. Ahsoka, Kote knew, had been hurt in the last fray. He could imagine, too easily, how Rex must have felt about that. But…

“Unless you’d like to fight about it again,” Ventress said, lips pulling back further, her teeth stained black through some process that Kote knew not. Kote supposed it made them look more shark-like. 

Rex opened his mouth, and Kote spoke over him, “We’ll need vows and promises that you go not to gather more forces, only to return.”

Ventress cut her eyes towards him, some of the tension easing from her grimace. The tattoos on her chin made her look as though blood were running down from the corners of her mouth. “What promise could I make that you would believe?” she asked, something like amusement curling through her tone.

“Well,” he said, thoughts racing and half-sure this was a dream, that it could not  _ actually  _ be over. “We’ll start with a promise of blood. And we’ll work up from there.”

#

There was cheering - cautious at first and then growing louder - after Ventress swam away, her arm still bleeding freely. Kote pressed a hand over the wound on his own forearm, where he’d mingled blood with her.

Their peoples were so different, but most of the merfolk peoples spread through Sho’cye’s embrace shared the oldest traditions. Blood was always binding.

He wondered, watching Ventress disappear into the distance, if she would keep her word. If she would, in fact, come to Sundari with a retinue to set up an official treaty. That would be, he thought, an interesting problem.

It was one he didn’t have time to worry about as the celebrations spread. The army was exhausted, but they found the energy to fall into one another, spinning and spiralling through the water. Kote watched them, moving back to the main camp, floating a little back from the outpouring of joy and relief. 

“Will you not celebrate?” Ti asked, arriving from above with a flick of her crimson tail. Kote glanced at her. The campaign had, at the least, fostered relations with the Togruta. They celebrated alongside the Mandalorians. Some of them even went off together, Kote noted, perhaps encouraged by Rex and Ahsoka’s….fondness for one another.

“Not yet,” Kote said. His celebrations could wait for the break of air across his face, for Obi-Wan, in his arms again, for--

“We’ll let them celebrate through the day,” he said, resisting the urge down his spine that wanted to press for home right away, that wanted to race for Sundari and the official closing of the war, that wanted to hurry away, back to where his heart waited for him. “We start for home tomorrow.”

#

The journey back to Sundari was, thankfully, uneventful. Nothing attacked them. No additional wars broke out. Sho’cye did not curse him to wander, did not plague him with storms or monsters. Only distance stood in his way, only logistical issues tied to moving the wounded and keeping the army fed enough to keep swimming.

Kote worked with Ti, for a portion of the time, on a more intensive treaty between their peoples, though she could not confirm it totally on her own. 

He spoke with his people and the Togruta through the days as they traveled, with Rex, many evenings, before Rex slipped away to visit Ahsoka.

His nights he spent alone. He was one of the few, he knew, especially in the first days after their victory. His people celebrated well, and frequently, but he had no desire to join in. He, at least, saw Obi-Wan in some of his dreams, but those nightly visions were not always pleasant.

Too often, he dreamed of Obi-Wan on the beach, dissolving into nothingness. Too often, he dreamed of returning to the capital only to find that one enemy or the other had been successful, that Wolv and Kix had been too late. Too often he jerked to wakefulness, his heart beating so hard at his ribs that it hurt.

The dreams preoccupied him as, finally, they made their return to Sundari, music already pouring out into the water, making the entire world vibrate. He nodded at the delegation sent out to meet them, and his mother surged forward, hitting him in the chest, both of her arms thrown around him.

“It’s alright,” he told her, gripping her close, “it’s over, now.”

She made a ragged sound, her face pressed against his shoulder, asking, roughly, “Rex?”

“With me,” Kote reassured her, and she lifted her head at once, as though she had been preparing for a different outcome, bracing herself for it. He turned in the water, and Rex was  _ there _ , hitting them both hard enough to spin them into a roll, flashing in sharp, bright bursts of light, all relief and delight.

Rex had been far from home so much longer than Kote, kept on the front for an age. A moment later there was a smaller impact against Kote’s back, a thin arm stretching around him, and he craned his head around to spot the dark mop of Boba’s hair, pulling him closer as, around them, the entire city celebrated.

#

Kote considered seriously heading for the surface right away. 

He felt like there was a pit inside of him, an endless crushing expanse, stretching down to the depths where nothing could survive. He watched reunion after reunion, just passing through the city, members of his army splitting off, going  _ home _ , looking for their loved ones in the crowd.

His heart, held so far away, throbbed and ached. 

But securing victory on a battlefield did not  _ end  _ a war, and he knew that. He’d seen his father return home after a campaign often enough. He  _ remembered  _ the anxiety and worry that built while the army was away, the relief at seeing them return, the need to settle all of those emotions.

And, even beyond that, there was the council to handle. They would need to be informed of all that had happened. He’d been unhappy with his decisions, when he left, he knew. Victory had a way of soothing the worries of the council. Perhaps they would not think him confused and senseless, with the shark-riders driven away. 

He needed, also, to speak more of the treaty with the Togruta. Rex’s nuptials would need to be arranged….

Kote considered all the work stretching before him and found it nothing but frustration. Perhaps a cyclops would not torment him, but the council chambers lurked like Scylla and the delegates from the Togruta pulled endlessly at his attention like Charybdis, delaying him endlessly. 

He did not want to argue and negotiate and  _ arrange _ . He  _ wanted  _ to go find Obi-Wan, to pull him close and just hold him until the ache inside went away. But he had a duty. And he’d not been shaped to shirk it, despite the feeling that he had been pulled nearly in half with want and aching loss. 

He set that aside, smiling when Boba bumped against him again, demanding that Kote tell him all that had happened as they moved through the city. His youngest brother had gotten bigger again, during Kote’s time away. Soon he would be a man grown, too.

Kote scrubbed a hand over Boba’s hair and shook his head. “I’ll tell you later,” he said, “tell me about your school, instead.”

#

There were galas to attend, parties and celebrations. Kote attended them; it was nothing less than duty to spend hours there, speaking and listening and just being seen. There were delicacies to eat, sweet music to listen to, ever so many people who wanted to talk to him, who looked him over with interest, promises in their eyes.

He wanted none of what they offered, thinking of all the promises of Calypso.

Kote knew, perfectly well, that he’d made it home, but it wasn’t the place where his heart resided, and he’d worried - yearned - for so long. The days dragged past, forcing him to wait despite every itching urge in his bones.

He spent so much time in the council chambers. 

None of the councilmembers seemed interested in arguing with him, at least. Perhaps they all remembered, too well, the spill of Thrull’s blood through the water. Or, perhaps, securing a victory had done what all the explanations in the sea could not. They hadn’t been happy about his treaty with the Togruta, but the Togruta had come, fought and died beside them.

And they’d left, again, without trying to cause any problems or start any fights.

Successful generals were rarely met with arguments, his father had said, once. Perhaps he’d been right about that, too.

Days dragged past; each one felt like it lasted a year, or perhaps a decade. Kote set aside some time to send scouts towards the surface, looking for information about nearby pieces of land - islands - and their inhabitants. They brought him back the answers he looked for with curious expressions, though they asked no questions.

Rex arrived one morning with fresh ink over his heart, all orange and brilliant white, a smaller reflection of the tattoos across Ahsoka’s face. And Kote felt glad for his brother, watching Ahsoka drag her fingers over the new markings with a pleased, warm expression on her face. It was good to watch Ahsoka shift closer to Rex, twining her arms over his shoulders.

But it only increased the ache in Kote’s chest.

He  _ wanted _ \--

But his wants had their place. They were not more important than what  _ needed  _ done, than what his people needed from him. They did  _ not _ need him to disappear, suddenly, after such an upheaval as they’d all lived through.

There was so much work to be done. New borders to be set. Settlements to rebuild along those borders. Discussions about how to handle the shark-riders, if Ventress came as she’d said she would, to settle an official treaty….

Kote fought his way through each duty, jaw tight and aching. 

He felt his temper fraying, his answers getting sharper if he did not pay attention, regardless of how deserved his ire was, in reality. Sometimes, he barked an answer and heard his father in his voice, remembered all the times he’d accompanied Jango throughout his duties, remembered watching Jango grow more and more frustrated through a day. 

Kote sparred when he could, as much as possible, trying to burn out the itch in his bones and the ache in his chest. He succeeded in neither and returned, tense and scowling, to his rooms one evening. 

It was a surprise to find his mother there, already. 

“Mother,” he said, inclining his head towards her, knowing perfectly well that he was in no fit condition to be company. “I didn’t expect to see you until tomorrow.” He had not expected to see her until there was yet another council meeting about….well, he could only guess.

There seemed always to be  _ something, _ a new demand on his time.

“I know,” she said, turning to face him, a soft smile on her mouth. “But I had concerns that could not wait.”

He felt his jaw tense further and forced himself to relax it, lest he snap one of his teeth. “What sort of concerns?” he asked, flicking his tail in a brief display of frustration and grimacing at himself. She certainly deserved to bring her concerns to him, no matter the time. He only hoped that she didn’t want--

“I am beyond relieved,” she said, cutting into his thoughts, “that you brought Rex back with you from the front. And that I have Boba here with me. But three of my sons I have not seen or heard from in months.”

He glanced over at her; it was not what he’d expected. She was still smiling at him, softly, her head cocked to the side and her eyes so dark and familiar. She reached out to him, placed a hand on his arm when he asked, “What?”

“It would be well,” she said, quietly, “for someone to go and check on them. Perhaps send word about them home to their mother, who misses them dearly. And I doubt that they will settle to speak news to anyone but you, not after you sent them to guard your heart.”

Kote’s heart - ever so far away - lurched in his chest, nonetheless. He  _ wanted _ , so badly, to agree right away, to rush off. But he had duties. They hung around his neck like the metal ropes made by the humans. He said, “The council wants--”

“Rex and I are perfectly capable of dealing with the council, now that they are satisfied with the resolution of the war. We know your will well enough, Kote. And it will be good for Rex to experience  _ this  _ part of his duties, instead of just those carried out on the battlefield.” She was still smiling, faintly, though he thought there was some amusement in her expression, at the moment.

Want cored down through him. He looked to the side, a jerk of movement, and said, “I know I have duties, I--”

“You’ve fulfilled them,” she said, firm, in a voice he’d never been able to ignore. “Go. Send me word of your brothers. Retrieve your heart.” He closed his eyes, just for a moment, seeing Obi-Wan so clear behind them, in his memory, kneeling on the sand, weeping--

“Go to him,” she said, her hand sliding onto his cheek, turning his face so that he had to look at her. Her eyes shone and her smile had faded, leaving her looking soft. Worried. “I will make it an order, if I must.” He clicked, sharp, and held her close, for an instant. 

#

Likely, it would have been sensible to wait until morning to go. In fact, it was nearly the time of waking by the time Kote left the city, but only because he spent most of the night preparing. He woke Rex, near the middle of the night, ignoring the soft noises of protest he heard from Rex’s sleeping chamber, the familiar rise and fall of Ahsoka’s voice. 

Rex flashed amusement at him when Kote explained that he was leaving, but only for a moment. His expression grew serious, almost at once, and he wished Kote luck, for Sho’cye’s whims to bless him throughout his journey.

Boba took the news less well, frustrated and visibly unhappy that Kote would be leaving again, even if it meant that he would get word of Kix, Wolv, and Eyayah. “It’s not fair,” Boba snapped, tail thrashing when Kote came to speak with him. “You’re always leaving! You just got back!”

“And I will come back again,” Kote told him, calm as he could manage. Boba had always had a temper, perhaps more than any of the rest of their brothers. Kote thought, sometimes, that it was because he had been so young when their father died, little more than a minnow, really. 

“I don’t see why you have to leave at all,” Boba said, and turned before Kote could try to explain, he darted off and away. Kote sighed, scrubbed a hand over his head, and let the boy go. Sometimes, there were no explanations that would satisfy, anyway.

Boba would understand, someday.

Once he was older.

“It’s alright,” Va’yen said, from the entryway, and Kote turned to look at her. “I’ll speak with him,” she added, and he could only nod. His eyes burned with exhaustion. It had been a long day and he had not slept, but he could not bring himself to delay leaving any longer. “I’ve gathered a guard for you,” she said, snagging his attention once more, and she smiled, amused, at his frown. “You cannot run off ever  _ alone _ , my son. Especially not now.”

And he did not argue, though the idea of an escort rankled. After all, she had thought him dead for months. If sending along a guard made her feel better, he would not argue it. If they failed to keep up, well….

He could leave directions as to where he planned to go. “Where are these guards, then?” he asked, and her smile softened.

#

The guards, as it turned out, managed to keep up with Kote, at least through the first day. They made protesting sounds behind him on the second, when he started outdistancing them, but the surface called to him, sweet and tempting.

He was stronger, healthier than he’d been when he left Obi-Wan’s care. His injuries had healed, all of them, though there was still a faint pull in his side when he swam for long periods of time. Perhaps it would always remain.

He did not mind it, so much. It reminded him of Obi-Wan’s hands on his side, his careful attention and the curve of his cheek. The memories spurred him faster. He wanted to  _ arrive _ , he wanted to see Obi-Wan, make sure he was well, hold him, kiss him softly and brush their mouths together.

Now that he was finally set on his way, his worries curled tighter around him. It had been so long since he heard anything of Obi-Wan’s condition. An ache spread down into his gut, a throb that whispered that perhaps it was too late, perhaps there’d been nothing for his brothers to find, perhaps--

Swimming all the way in one segment was impossible, despite the demands of Kote’s missing heart. He had to rest, to eat and sleep, over the days that came. His dreams were clamoring things, full of jumbling images, hopes, the information he’d gathered about the islands near Mandalore, and fears, all tangled together. 

He woke after short snatches of sleep to head on his way again, over and over, until the sea around him grew painfully familiar. His heart beat unevenly in his chest, racing along far too fast, as he tried to move faster.

#

Living on a boat took some getting used to, but, really, the space wasn’t much smaller than Obi-Wan’s cabin. He did not spend much time on the boat throughout the day, anyway. He still swam through the ocean, accompanied by one of Cody’s brothers or a guard, no matter where he went.

It wasn’t difficult to swim ashore, when he wanted to get dry land under his feet, or to join Boga, who preferred to spend her time up on one of the little beaches they’d found. He visited his little cabin, once, over Wolv’s protests, and walked through the ashes of the place that had been his home with a feeling of numbness spreading through him.

Nothing much remained. LIttle pieces of charred wood, half-melted pieces of glass. He stirred the ashes with his fingers, throat tight, and then turned and left. There was nothing else to be done about it. He could have lost much more in the fire, but that was a cold comfort.

Obi-Wan slept in the little bunk in the cabin on the boat, lulled to sleep each night by the rise and fall of the sea.

There were a number of problems they had to sort out, as he took to living on the boat. Fresh water was the primary concern, but Wolv managed to find some on a little spit of rock that technically was probably an island, not far from the little cove where Obi-Wan had lived.

He stored as much as he could on the boat and made frequent trips to get more. There was plenty to eat, with the help of the merfolk, and fresh food was not impossible to acquire. He simply took the boat a few towns up the shore and made such purchases as he wished. 

The merfolk appreciated the trips more than he did, he thought. They were all delighted when he brought back fruits and candies, especially Eyayah, who once attempted to eat a gallon of blueberries on his own. 

Obi-Wan bought peanut butter and watched, stifling a smile against his arm, as they tried to get it off of their teeth, afterwards. He’d managed not to laugh, delighted when Wolv professed it to be the most delicious food he’d ever eaten. He asked for more, almost every time Obi-Wan went ashore. Money, it seemed, would not be an issue, so Obi-Wan was happy to bring them such treats as they wanted.

He told them stories, throughout the days and in the evenings. It was difficult, translating the words he knew so well into Mando’a, but he was getting better at it with practice. Sometimes, he had to focus on remembering to speak in English when he went into town. 

There was no reason to speak it at all, on the boat. 

The storms were a concern for him; they’d grown milder, thankfully. Obi-Wan thought they were through the worst of them, but they never went away completely on the sea. His little ship rose and fell when the storms did blow up.

More than once he wondered what would happen if the boat were to sink.

There were always merfolk close to him. Wolv, especially, seemed pleased by the ability to keep him in the water all the time. He assumed they would not let him drown. He considered it, listening to the rain fall on the top of the cabin one evening, sweet music rising out of the surrounding sea as the merfolk sang.

He did not feel the urge to jump over the edge to join them. He felt only tired, his eyelids growing heavy, until he slept. 

He woke the next morning with the dawn, nudging Boga where she’d fallen asleep across his legs. She made a faint wuffing noise and made no attempt to move when he rolled from the bed, stretching and climbing out into the fresh dawn.

The sun had not risen yet, only just staining the horizon pink, not bright enough to chase the stars away. Obi-Wan stood for a moment on the deck, just staring across the dark sea, the moon thin and pale against the tapestry of the endless sky.

He shivered. The air was always cold on the ocean in the mornings, but he did not feel like returning to his bed. He felt unsettled, cleaning his teeth in the little basin he kept on the ship for that purpose, scrubbing at his face and finishing his morning routine before wandering across the deck, stepping onto the side of the ship, wondering which guard was currently circling the craft.

He was staring down into the water, looking for a familiar flash of scales and skin, when sudden shouting drew his attention. He tensed, even as Eyayah burst through the surface of the water, eyes wide as he blurted, “He’s here! He’s here!”

“Who?” Obi-Wan demanded, unsure if he should rush to the cabin for his service sidearm or not. They’d had no further attacks from other merfolk, not since Cody’s brothers had arrived. But he’d worried, throughout, that they might come back, that--

“Kote!” Eyayah called up to him, gesturing with both arms. “He’s--”

“Where?” Obi-Wan scanned the surface of the water, wishing he had the vision the merfolk seemed to have. He swore they could look down through the shine off of the surface and see things beneath, so easily. His heart pounded against his ribs, trying to break through the bones. He paced along the side of the boat, breath catching and--

“Wolv went to meet him,” Eyayah said, “to tell him exactly where we were, don’t worry, he’s--”

Obi-Wan’s patience ran out. All he’d wanted was directions. He sucked in a breath and jumped off of the railing, diving at least somewhat effectively into the water, which closed over him. He kept his eyes open, looking around, turning in a circle. 

There were other merfolk - his guards and Kix - but he saw no sign of Cody’s golden scales. It was so dark under the water, with the sun not yet fully risen. He kicked his way back to the surface and sucked in a breath. 

He shoved his hair back, pulse racing under his skin. He wasn’t sure exactly how deep he could dive, currently. He’d been practicing, with the merfolk, seeing how long he could hold his breath, how well he could cleave through the water.

Cody was there, somewhere. He drew in another deep breath and froze before he could submerge once more.

Music echoed, faint, up through the water. And he knew Cody’s voice. He knew the  _ words _ , now, and flushed that Cody would say such things, turning in the embrace of the sea, searching--

He saw a flash of gold through the water as he turned, caught an instant’s look at it, and then there were arms around him, closing around his back, pulling him in,  _ holding him _ . Cody had been moving  _ fast _ , and they rose several feet out of the water, before splashing back down, spinning.

Obi-Wan laughed, breathless, when they surfaced again, water splattering across his face, unnoticed. He threw both arms around Cody, holding on, aware he was shaking and unable to stop. He could not think, could barely breathe, not with Cody suddenly back,  _ in his arms _ , arms like bands around him.

“Obi-Wan,” Cody panted, releasing one arm, reaching up and cupping the back of Obi-Wan’s head, and Obi-Wan was already leaning forward, already pressing their foreheads together, skin slick from the water. “Obi-Wan, I--”

“You came back,” Obi-Wan gasped, shaping the words in Mando’a, feeling as though he’d been punched in the gut. It was not what he’d meant to say, but the words slipped out, anyway, and he could hear the awe and shock in his own tone. “You--”

Cody adjusted his grip and pressed a kiss to Obi-Wan’s mouth, stealing the words he would have babbled. 

Obi-Wan let out a shuddering breath, eyes burning suddenly. He kissed Cody’s mouth, uncaring, for the moment, about the sharp teeth behind soft lips. He slid a hand up Cody’s neck, fingers threading into his hair, and--

And Cody had sent people to look after him. Had promised to come back. Obi-Wan had tried to believe, for the entire time that Cody had been away. But there had been a certainty within him that said it could not be true, that said that it was not possible.

“Sh,” Cody murmured to him, nuzzling back against his temple, fingers brushing at Obi-Wan’s cheeks, careful, wiping away trails of burning heat. “Sh, I’m here, I promised you I’d come back for you.”

“You did,” Obi-Wan choked, and kissed him again, aware of nothing else in the world but Cody, the reality of his presence. “Are you…” He shifted back, as much as he could, with Cody holding him so tight, looking him over. He looked exhausted, dark bruises beneath his eyes and a ragged smile on his mouth. “You are not hurting, are you--”

“I’m fine,” Cody told him, fingers gripping into Obi-Wan’s hair, pulling him close again, and there were a hundred - a thousand - other questions Obi-Wan meant to ask, but they all fell away to nothingness.

They could, he decided - rubbing his forehead against Cody’s - wait. Just for a while. He shifted, brushing his mouth against Cody’s, and--

“Kote!” Eyayah’s familiar voice was really far too close. Obi-Wan startled, blinking over to find Eyayah bobbing in the water beside them, looking wide-eyed and delighted. “You’re back! What’s going on? Is everything alright? What’s--”

“Everything is fine,” Cody said, and Obi-Wan shoved down the emotions all boiling over in his chest, setting them to one side, or trying. He made to shift back, to give Cody the space to greet his brothers, and Cody tightened his grip in immediate response, even as Kix and Wolv breached the surface alongside them, the guards popping up moments later, further out.

“The war--” Wolv started, expression tense, and Cody smiled across at him.

“Over,” he said, and relief reached down into Obi-Wan’s chest and twisted like the blade of the sweetest knife. “Over and done. Mother and Boba are fine. Rex will be married, soon--” there were exclamations, all at once, and Cody ignored them “--and we have a treaty with the Togruta and--”

“ _ What? _ ” Wolv snapped, hard and flat, and Cody made a series of unhappy sounds, looking over at all of them, stroking his hand down Obi-Wan’s back. And it was then that Boga, finally woken by the excitement, came charging from the cabin and leapt in the water, splashing everywhere and trying to share the same space in the water with Cody.

“I suppose,” Cody said, disappointment, frustration, and amusement all mingled in his tone, “that we’re going to have to talk.” 

#

Kote recalled little about the last stretch of his journey. There was only the goal, only his destination, occupying all of his thoughts. He knew he spoke briefly to one of the guards he’d sent with Wolv, surprised to find the woman so far from the cabin. She said something about Obi-Wan staying on a boat, not being where Kote had left him - which made no sense, but it was a statement to be interrogated later - and he’d changed direction. And then there had been the surface and--

And Obi-Wan, caught in his arms, held close,  _ laughing _ . Alive and lovely, hair shining in the dawn’s first sweet light. Kote kissed him, brushed their mouths together, and felt something snap inside his chest, tension and aching worry all flowing away at once.

Obi-Wan’s hair was longer, he noted, but his mouth tasted just as sweet. He was wearing barely anything, just his underclothes and the necklace of shell that Kote had made him, instead of the more lovely jewelry Kote had sent him, which made Kote’s chest ache anew. He was solid in Kote’s arms, warm and perfect, and Kote  _ wanted _ \--

And so, of course, his brothers were there to interrupt. Still, he could not feel too angry with them. They had done as he asked, kept Obi-Wan safe and healthy while he was away. He shoved aside the ache in his jaw and the fire in his bones, the  _ hunger _ , and focused on explanations, instead, though he did keep Obi-Wan close.

He explained, as quickly as he could, all that had happened, watching their expressions as he spoke. Wolv, he noted, looked much better than he had when last they’d seen one another. The angry red of his scars had faded, as had the haunted look in his eye that had worried Kote so much.

But he’d known that Obi-Wan would take care of his brothers, every bit as much as they’d take care of him. Kote had never doubted that for a moment. 

By the time he finished his explanations, the sun was high overhead and two of the guards had brought breakfast. Obi-Wan climbed back up onto his boat - Kote watched him ascend the ladder with an appreciative throb in his gut; Obi-Wan’s legs were so long and the water ran down them, all over so much pale, lovely skin - and returned a moment later with fruit that he called blueberries.

While he was gone, one of the guards took Boga, swimming off to a piece of land not far distant. 

Obi-Wan sat on the side of the boat - it was  _ much  _ larger than the one he’d had when Kote left - and handed down the blueberries, shivering a little in the morning air. Kote put a hand on his leg, ran his palm up to Obi-Wan’s knee and felt his breath catch, aching with wants he firmly sat aside, for the moment. “Why do you have this boat?” he asked, finally, and felt Obi-Wan stiffen under his touch. 

“We had some few problems,” Obi-Wan said. His Mando’a had improved greatly, in the time Kote had been away, his accent largely disappearing. He sounded like he’d grown up in Sundari, picking up the accent of all of Kote’s brothers, even if he still struggled a little with the grammar. “While you were not being here.”

Kote tensed down his spine and looked over to Wolv, who was already frowning. “You didn’t tell me to worry about the other humans,” Wolv said, tone sharp and chiding, and Kote tightened his grip on Obi-Wan’s leg, wondering what they’d done, the people Obi-Wan had been so afraid of, if they’d--

“No one was getting hurt,” Obi-Wan said, reaching out, hesitatingly, and touching Kote’s hand. Wolv made a sharp sound and took over the story. Kote listened with a kindling rage in his gut, thinking about Obi-Wan finding his cabin destroyed, about them  _ burning it down _ , all because - because he was not what they wanted him to be.

“We’ve kept a constant guard,” Wolv finished, tone quiet. “He’s been safe, I promise.”

“They burned down the cabin!” Kote snapped, because the image of the little building ablaze would not leave him. He could not stop considering what would have happened if Obi-Wan had been in his bed, he could not--

“I am most fine,” Obi-Wan said, reaching out, leaning forward, brushing his fingers across Kote’s brow, so gentle and soft. Kote  _ felt  _ the light under his skin flare, his gut getting tighter, even as he leaned into the touch, his anger fleeing away, for the moment.

He’d missed Obi-Wan more than it felt possible to miss someone and keep living. 

Eyayah said something, off to the side. Kote watched Obi-Wan turn to look at him, answering him with a soft smile. It was good, seeing proof that Obi-Wan had gotten along well with his brothers. That they were close enough to converse with one another easily. That did not change the fact that Kote very much wished his brothers would all find somewhere else to be.

He got his desire a moment later, Wolv cutting into whatever Eyayah was saying - something about some kind of bandits and a rock - to say, “I think we’ve got the basics about what happened. We’ll go scout out the deeper water. Catch up with whatever guards you left behind, Kote.”

“But--” Eyayah started.

“That’s a good idea,” Kote said, because, as much as he loved them, he’d  _ waited  _ and having Obi-Wan so close, skin warm beneath Kote’s hands, was sorely testing what control he had left. Obi-Wan looked at him when he spoke, eyes so clear and sharp, and Kote’s chest ached. He said, barely hearing himself, “You can tell me all about the bandits when you get back, Eyayah.”

Eyayah made a few more protests, but Kote barely noted them. Wolv and Kix possibly dragged him away. 

And then it was just the boat, floating atop the water, and Obi-Wan, and--

Kote grabbed the rungs of the ladder and snapped his tail to the side, hard. He’d been exhausted, but all of that seemed to have fallen away. He shoved out of the water, up to the railing, where Obi-Wan caught at him, exclaiming in surprise, both arms around Kote’s chest.

“What--” Obi-Wan started, and then Kote had an arm around his shoulders, shifting closer, brushing their mouths together, feeling the way Obi-Wan’s breath stuttered out against his lips. 

He felt Obi-Wan brace, taking Kote’s weight the way he always did. Things weighed more out of the water, Kote knew that, but Obi-Wan had always lifted and carried him without any complaints. He was  _ strong _ , and the muscles under his skin tensed, even as he groaned, adjusting his grip.

Kote shifted, wanting to kiss him again, to nuzzle back against his hair, remembering the first time they’d touched in such a way. Obi-Wan panted, “Where - where should we going?”

The boat was flat under Obi-Wan’s feet, but there was not very much room. For some reason, Obi-Wan’s motorcycle was on the vessel and was taking up most of the free space. “Into the water,” Kote decided, and Obi-Wan nodded.

They managed to disembark the boat with relative ease. Well. Obi-Wan dropped him over the side, more than anything, and then jumped in. Kote grabbed him as he surfaced, pulling him close, wanting never to be far from him again, kissing him as Obi-Wan gasped, “Kote, I--”

“Cody,” Kote cut in, before the thought to offer the correction even fully processed. He’d  _ known  _ Obi-Wan’s accent had improved. He should have expected, perhaps, the adjustment to the way Obi-Wan said his name, but he hadn’t. It stung, sharply, under his ribs. He didn’t like it, not at all.

Obi-Wan flushed, glancing to the side, mouth turning down just a little as he said, “I know that is not how to say it. You should have telling me before, I--”

“No.” Kote slid a hand up, cupping the back of Obi-Wan’s head, tugging until Obi-Wan looked at him. “I like the way  _ you  _ say my name. Please. I’ve been waiting to hear you say it, for so long.”

Obi-Wan stared at him for a moment, eyes soft and searching, as though he were looking for a lie. It was a look Kote had gotten well familiar with, living with him for so long. Obi-Wan never believed good things. Not at first. “Please,” Kote said, kissing him, tugging him even closer, wanting to be as close as they could get. 

“Cody,” Obi-Wan rasped out, quietly, and his voice went right down Kote’s spine. “I--you came back.”

“I promised I would,” he said, sliding his hand down Obi-Wan’s back, over the tempting curve of his ass, to his glorious, long legs. He loved the line of Obi-Wan’s thighs, the long muscle along the underside, firm under his fingers when he gripped and tugged, wanting--

Wanting Obi-Wan’s legs wrapped around him, again. He’d ached with missing the circle of them around his tail. He groaned, his cock aching when he slid it free, at the welcome feeling of Obi-Wan pressed so close to him. 

“Your brothers--” Obi-Wan panted out, urgently, against Kote’s mouth, his skin staining red all across his face and down his neck. “They will--be hearing--”

“If they haven’t gotten far away from here by now,” Kote said, rocking against him, against the welcome hardness of Obi-Wan’s cock, proof that Obi-Wan still wanted him, wanted him just as much. “That’s their own fault.  _ Fuck _ . I’ve  _ missed  _ you.”

Obi-Wan gasped in his arms, working a hand between them, fingers curled around Kote’s cock, so sure and perfect and-- “I missed you, too,” he panted out, and Kote swore, trying to pull him closer, thrusting up into his grip.

It did not take long. They’d been separated for a terrible stretch of time and Obi-Wan’s touch, his closeness, brought Kote to the edge near immediately. Obi-Wan leaned against him, cock twitching in Kote’s hand, afterwards, his head heavy on Kote’s shoulder, and finding release had been - been necessary, a relief so long denied.

But holding Obi-Wan, listening to him breathe while he went all pliant and soft, settled something deep inside Kote’s chest, something that had been askew since he’d left. He nuzzled against Obi-Wan’s hair, tightened his grip, and held on.

#

Obi-Wan could not shake the feeling that he was dreaming, not even with Cody absently stroking a hand up and down his back. He’d made to unwrap his legs, after they’d made a mess all over each other, but Cody had rasped, “Leave them,” and something about his tone had made Obi-Wan flush hot under his skin.

He’d kept his legs where they were, curled loose around Cody’s tail, relearning the feel of scales against his inner thighs, the solid strength of Cody’s shoulders, the softness of his skin and the warmth of his voice.

If it was a dream, he decided, at least it was a sweet one.

He conceded that it was unlikely he would grow cold in a dream when he started shivering. Cody shifted when the trembles started, and said, “You’re cold. Come on. Out of the water.”

Obi-Wan sighed, but nodded. He could stay far longer in the water than he’d been able to, once. Perhaps he was getting used to the chill. But it still ate into him, eventually. He reluctantly unwrapped his legs, Cody’s hands dragging down his thighs. Climbing up onto the deck of the ship felt odd, and he looked over his shoulder at the top to find Cody staring at him, eyes dark and focused.

It brought a fresh wave of heat to his skin.

“What will you do?” Obi-Wan asked, wondering, as he dripped water down onto the deck, if Cody would go find his brothers, discuss more about what had happened. Make plans to go home again. Make--

“I’m coming up there,” Cody said, cutting off his thoughts, and hauled himself from the water again, Obi-Wan cursing and moving forward to help him. He ended up with an armful of Cody, with barely enough space for both of them on the crowded deck.

“I’m having a bed,” Obi-Wan said, after a beat. The cabin wasn’t much bigger than the deck, all told, but it didn’t have a motorcycle inside of it. And - and he could lay Cody down, perhaps, for a while, before he needed to go back to the water.

“A bed sounds nice,” Cody told him, and Obi-Wan’s gut gave a little lurch, even as he adjusted his grip, lifting Cody fully. There was not far to go, which was fortunate. Carrying Cody while the boat rose and fell on the waves was a fresh challenge.

Obi-Wan managed not to drop him, ducking to get into the cabin, taking another few steps, and getting a knee on the bed. They both sprawled forward across it, Obi-Wan feeling punchy enough with relief - with impossible joy - to laugh as they stretched beside one another. 

“Oh,” he said, smiling over at Cody, looking him over, “I missed you.”

It felt impossible that Cody had actually come back, but he was in Obi-Wan’s bed, solid and real when Obi-Wan carefully traced fingertips across his cheek. Cody made a soft sound, leaning into the touch, and it granted Obi-Wan the boldness to continue.

“I worried most a lot about you,” Obi-Wan told him, the words halting as he reached Cody’s jaw. He’d spent endless days fearing the worst, but Cody was alive, his skin still damp as Obi-Wan’s fingers ran over his neck.

Blue-purple light rose under his fingers, and Obi-Wan flushed in response. Cody slid a hand down his side and murmured, “I worried about you, too, Obi-Wan. Every day.”

Which made no sense. Obi-Wan had not been at war. And Cody had sent a ridiculous number of people to look after him. “You did not needing to,” Obi-Wan told him, brushing a touch over his collarbone, onto his chest, hesitating, for a moment, in case Cody did not want such a touch anymore, but--

But he could feel Cody’s heart beating more quickly under his touch. Cody’s hand tightened on his hip, even as Cody said, voice getting thicker, “I did.”

Obi-Wan set the point aside to argue later, reaching the familiar whorls and swirls of Cody’s tattoos and stopping. He’d noticed, earlier, that the empty circle had been filled. It was difficult to miss. Cody’s other tattoos were all dark. The ink filling the circle was bright with reds and oranges, standing out on his dark skin.

Obi-Wan traced his fingers across it - it was raised, under his touch, just a little - looking at the swirls around the borders and the pattern inside, and Cody said, reaching up and covering his hand, pressing Obi-Wan’s palm flat to his chest, “It’s yours.”

“What?” Obi-Wan asked, glancing up at him.

Cody smiled at him, soft, reaching up and tucking strands of Obi-Wan’s hair behind his ear. “I told you different parts of the ink meant different things,” he said, and Obi-Wan stared at him, feeling Cody’s heart beating under his palm. “This is for you. To represent my heart.”

Obi-Wan froze, the sun under his palm. Cody’s heart was beating steady under his skin. “I…” He started, and wetted his lips, glancing to the side. “That is - you do not having to--”

“I wanted to,” Cody interrupted him, pushing up onto an elbow, curling his hand around the back of Obi-Wan’s neck. “I love you.” And the surety with which he said it, even after so long away, even after going home, left Obi-Wan feeling shaky. He tugged Obi-Wan down, close enough to kiss, hand sliding away. He brushed his fingers across the necklace on Obi-Wan’s neck and then off of Obi-Wan’s shoulder.

Obi-Wan exhaled shakily when Cody drew back, blinking his eyes open. “My heart is always yours,” Cody said, soft and rough, lifting his hand from the bag looped around his waist. He shifted again, sitting, almost, though the position always looked awkward for him, and took Obi-Wan’s hand, turning it palm up. He said, voice quiet, “I’d like your heart to be mine.”

He deposited something cool and heavy - small - in Obi-Wan’s hand. Obi-Wan glanced down and froze. A ring sat in the middle of his palm, the band thick and golden, as shining as Cody’s scales. There were stones set in it, blue gems put directly in the band.

It made no sense. The implication-- Obi-Wan managed to say, after a moment, trying to explain what such a gift would mean, “Cody. Is lovely. But for mine people, is for--”

“Marrying me,” Cody said, the first words he’d spoken in English since Obi-Wan had seen him, besides ‘fuck.’ Obi-Wan jerked to meet his gaze and found Cody just...watching him, eyes infinitely warm and soft. “Yes?”

Obi-Wan’s breath caught oddly in his throat. He felt his vision trying to blur and blinked his eyes rapidly, clearing them away. “I--” He started, and had to clear his throat, because it made no sense, really, for Cody to be - be asking this, not of him, he was--

“I’m loving you,” Cody said, still in English, and Obi-Wan heard a strange, pained sound from somewhere. “Sh, sh,” he murmured, curling an arm around Obi-Wan, pulling him close, so their foreheads rested together as Cody leaned against the side of the cabin. “Always I am - am loving you. So trusting me with  _ your  _ heart. Yes?”

“Yes,” Obi-Wan managed to gasp out, because he did trust Cody, more than he knew how to express. More than he thought he’d ever be able to trust anyone, shivering when Cody took his hand and lifted the ring from it, hesitating - for just a beat - before Obi-Wan took it and slid it onto his finger, his breath punching out as he did.

The ring felt heavy and chilly around his finger, resting against his knuckle. He looked at it, blinking rapidly a few times to improve his focus. Cody clicked in the back of his throat, blue and purple light shining off the glass on the inside of the cabin as he hooked a finger under Obi-Wan’s chin, tilting his face just so and kissing him.

And Obi-Wan had never imagined a marriage, not for himself. Even Satine, who he’d loved so dearly, once--he’d known she would never marry him. Not in his position. But Cody was a  _ King _ and wanted still--

The thoughts were driven from Obi-Wan’s head when Cody tumbled him down to the sheets, stretching out against him, crowding out all the confusion and doubt and worry with hot relief and overflooding joy to the exclusion of all else.

#

Obi-Wan always looked beautiful, especially spread out with his hair rumpled and color in his cheeks. Kote nipped at Obi-Wan’s bottom lip, and considered his lovely husband. He acknowledged, in the quiet of his own head, that there was a ceremony or two they needed to perform. He hoped Obi-Wan had the pearls close. He wanted everything formalized. Still, for all intents and purposes, Obi-Wan was his heart. 

All the important steps had been taken.

Obi-Wan’s breath hitched even as he drew one of his legs up, and, oh, Kote loved resting between his thighs, skin so soft and warm and close. The band around Obi-Wan’s finger caught the light in the room, reflecting it. Kote dragged a fingertip across the metal, kissing Obi-Wan briefly, wanting to touch him everywhere, all at once, to make up for every moment they were apart.

Obi-Wan groaned, a hand sliding up Kote’s arm, gripping at his shoulder even as Kote shifted. It was hard, moving on the bed. Moving out of the water always felt awkward. But he liked the way Obi-Wan relaxed, when they could lay recumbent on a surface, liked the noises he made and the way he squirmed and pushed into every touch.

Kote brushed his mouth down Obi-Wan’s throat, small scars beneath his lips, and his jaw and cock both ached. The bites had scarred and - oh - he liked that, felt the satisfaction of it down his spine, into his gut.

The marks of his teeth, imprinted and written into Obi-Wan’s skin. He must have picked at them, to make them scar so clearly, and--Kote liked  _ that  _ thought, too, the idea that Obi-Wan had wanted the marks to show up, to remain, to--

Obi-Wan swore, tilting his head to the side, welcoming, and Kote nipped at his skin, before sliding lower. Obi-Wan had scars, scattered across his chest, but no tattoos. No ink. Kote traced his mouth across the bare skin over Obi-Wan’s heart and wondered if he’d take a mark.

Kote would not require it - would not require anything of Obi-Wan that he didn’t want to give, but… But he ached with wanting his mark over Obi-Wan’s heart. 

He nipped at the soft skin, for the moment, sliding further, tail slamming into the wall with a sound that made Obi-Wan jump. “Sorry,” Kote murmured, against his stomach, brushing a soothing hand up his flank. Obi-Wan’s stomach muscles twitched under his mouth, Obi-Wan’s cock hard and curved up, and Kote had wanted him for so long, just like this.

Obi-Wan swore, somewhere up above, twisting to one side and digging at something in the little stand beside the narrow bed. 

Kote still didn’t know exactly what was in the bottle Obi-Wan managed to grab. Obi-Wan had never shared a name for it, and Kote hadn’t asked. It was enough to know it was slick and smooth. It was enough to know what Obi-Wan  _ did with it _ .

Kote nipped, hard, at Obi-Wan’s hip and asked, “Do you want to have me inside you?”

Obi-Wan made an inarticulate sound, or at least, Kote did not think it was words, not even in English. He rasped out, “Yes,” a moment later, unscrewing the top of the bottle. Kote watched him pour some of the liquid over his stomach, smearing his fingers through it, and got distracted from the task he’d wanted to accomplish, just for a moment.

The first time Obi-Wan had pressed a finger into himself had seemed….impossible. Humans were pliable in a way that Kote’s folk  _ weren’t _ . Scales could not be stretched and eased open. Some engaged in such congress, anyway, but it caused more injury and hurt than Kote would willingly do to a partner.

Kote put a hand on Obi-Wan’s thigh, pushing enough to coax him to move, and Obi-Wan turned his face to the side, biting his bottom lip and working a finger into his body and-- and his skin shined with the slick liquid. Kote knew exactly how good it felt to be in him, hot and tight and--

And he swore, turning to nip at Obi-Wan’s thigh, trailing his lips down the soft, delicate skin on Obi-Wan’s inner thigh, attention caught constantly by the movement of Obi-Wan’s wrist, the way his fingers slid in and disappeared, long and thin and lovely.

Obi-Wan’s cock jerked as he twisted his fingers in, stealing Kote’s attention. Obi-Wan’s cock looked so different to any Kote had ever seen before. It widened at the tip, and he assumed that was normal for humans, but had no idea, really.

It didn’t truly matter. He didn’t care what other humans looked like. Obi-Wan’s cock was the only one that interested him, going shiny at the tip, hard and hot when Kote curled a hand around him. Heat rolled down Kote’s back, and he stroked Obi-Wan’s cock from root to tip, slowly, enjoying a pleasure so long denied.

“Oh, God,” Obi-Wan groaned, lifting his hips into the touch, his flush spreading down his chest. Kote felt his mouth curl up, sliding his hand down again, keeping a steadying grip around Obi-Wan’s cock and leaning closer.

He’d never considered half the uses Obi-Wan found for his mouth. But nothing felt quite like sliding between Obi-Wan’s lips, his mouth hot and wet, tongue clever along the underside of Kote’s cock. He’d been trying to figure out some way to return the favor since the first time Obi-Wan swallowed around him.

His teeth made fully reciprocating impossible. But he could wet his lips with his tongue and slide them across the head of Obi-Wan’s cock, listening to Obi-Wan cry out brokenly at just that brief touch. “Cody,” he gasped, fingers going still, buried deep in his body. “What--”

Kote parted his lips, just a little, over the head of Obi-Wan’s cock and gave sucking a cautious try, keeping his teeth as far back as he could and--

Obi-Wan curled fingers into his hair, all at once, and pulled, making a choking sound, his cock twitching. Kote thought, for a breath, that he’d done it improperly, that he’d gotten his teeth too close, and then registered that Obi-Wan was coming, spilling all over Kote’s fingers and his own stomach, breathing jerkily, in ragged, panting, gasps.

“You like that?” Kote asked, stroking the pad of his thumb below the head of Obi-Wan’s cock, feeling him shiver all over. Obi-Wan’s fingers were still tangled in his hair, but no longer holding. He groaned something in answer, and Kote told him, “I enjoyed it. The taste of you.” Kote leaned forward, darting his tongue out to lick across the mess covering Obi-Wan’s reddened skin.

Obi-Wan groaned, sliding fingers free of his own body and grabbing Kote’s wrist. “Please,” Obi-Wan rasped, tugging, shifting his leg a little further to the side and--it was a lovely invitation.

One Kote could not bring himself to think about refusing. He swore, sliding his hand off of Obi-Wan’s cock and examining the mess over his fingers. Last time they’d done this, Obi-Wan had made a point of slicking up Kote’s cock, first. 

He considered, for a beat, and then ran his fingers through the rest of the come, spilled on Obi-Wan’s stomach. He reached down, fisting himself once, coating overheated, aching flesh, listening to Obi-Wan’s breath catch as he shifted, moving his tail, knocking into  _ something _ but it barely mattered. 

Not when he could tilt Obi-Wan’s hips just so, pressing closer, Obi-Wan’s body  _ impossibly  _ yielding around him, letting him push his cock  _ inside _ , so hot and tight. “Fuck, I love the way you feel,” he ground out, Obi-Wan making a ragged sound in answer, hands gripping at Kote’s arms, holding tight.

He felt his fins rising as he sunk in, until he was pressed flush against Obi-Wan’s body, breathing raggedly. The display likely meant nothing to Obi-Wan, but he couldn’t help but give in to the urge to - to show off each fin, to light up all in purple, to proclaim, as clearly as he could how good he felt, how much he  _ wanted _ \--

Wanted Obi-Wan, gasping his name and squirming beneath him, wanted each sound Obi-Wan made when he shifted forward, every part of his being created and made to search for both of their pleasure, to roll his body and use his tail for thrust. He wanted to press forward enough to bury his face against Obi-Wan’s neck, to feel Obi-Wan shift his head to the side, to hear him plead, “Cody, please.”

Kote opened his mouth against Obi-Wan’s shoulder, smothering the sound he made there against skin, against the edge of a scar he’d put there already. And it felt  _ right _ to open his jaw, to brush teeth over skin and shift to bite down, tasting blood in his mouth, hearing Obi-Wan cry out, feeling Obi-Wan clench around his cock, even as the rest of him went so pliant and sweet.

He’d wanted this - missed this - for so long. Each ragged sound, each curl of Obi-Wan’s fingers into the blankets, each thrust that brought their bodies together, eased away the impossible ache inside him. He wanted - one day - to fuck Obi-Wan for hours - for an entire day - but they’d been apart so long and he’d held so dearly to the dream of this return, of having Obi-Wan with him again, of--

Rolling his body just so, shoving his cock in and hearing Obi-Wan gasp, “Oh, I love you,” in perfect Mando’a. It undid every piece of restraint Kote might have been able to bring to bear. He groaned, the noise muffled against Obi-Wan’s skin, and went still, orgasm washing through him in long waves, fed by the slow roll of his body.

Obi-Wan’s blood was hot in his mouth, Obi-Wan’s breath shaky and uneven, his cock caught, hard, between their stomachs. 

Kote braced on one elbow, adjusting the set of his jaw, sliding his other hand between them. 

Obi-Wan made a thick, sharp sound when Kote curled fingers around his cock, stroking him even and steady. The touch made him clench around Kote’s cock, even as Kote rolled his back, the hot pressure dragging him through the long aftershocks of his orgasm. 

He wanted to murmur encouragement, but his teeth were set so sweet and perfect, he was buried just right and he’d--he’d never been inside a lover, before Obi-Wan. He closed his eyes, humming in his chest, stroking Obi-Wan a little faster, listening to him make increasingly cracked sounds, hands coming off the sheets, one arm wrapped around Kote’s shoulders, the other gripping desperately at his arm. Obi-Wan’s legs and stomach kept twitching.

Obi-Wan yelled when he came, loud and shaking. Kote felt the hot wet of his come, spilled everywhere, and did not intend, really, to sink his teeth just a little deeper, drawing a shivery, wet sound from Obi-Wan’s throat. He stroked down Obi-Wan’s cock again, half in a reflexive urge to comfort, half because it always seemed to him that Obi-Wan would not be finished coming so quickly.

He slid his hand back up, Obi-Wan’s cock still twitching a little, and Obi-Wan made a cracked, sharp sound, tugging ineffectively at Kote’s arm. Kote released his grip, anyway, wiping his hand on the sheets and - carefully - opening his jaw, teeth sliding free from skin as he lifted his mouth away from Obi-Wan’s shoulder.

He was bleeding; thick, dark blood that ran down off his shoulder and onto the bed. Some of it was pooling in the hollow of his throat. He looked dazed, flushed, hair stuck damp to his cheeks and forehead. There was come smeared all over his stomach, and Kote wanted, in that moment, to never be anywhere else.

Kote leaned down, pressing his mouth to Obi-Wan’s, softly, before kissing him, shifting so Obi-Wan’s legs could curl around his waist, so they could stay connected, just a little while longer, while he pulled on the sheets and put pressure against the bite, looking for the canteen he’d seen earlier, asking, “Obi-Wan, are you alright?”

Obi-Wan hummed, absently, threading his fingers back through Kote’s hair and holding on loosely. Kote kissed him again, unable to resist. There was something….deeply satisfying about reducing Obi-Wan to this quiet, heavy contentment, where he moved languidly and had to be coaxed into speaking.

And Kote had meant, really, to go back out to the water. To seek out Wolv, Kix, and Eyayah, to speak more with them.

But he supposed that none of the news he had would not keep. And Obi-Wan had gone heavy against the mattress, sighing softly when Kote slid from him, finally, and rolled them both to better hold him. 

Kote nuzzled against the back of Obi-Wan’s neck, opened the canteen - planning to convince Obi-Wan to drink at least a little - and ached with a feeling of being home.

#

Kote had known he was going to run out of energy, eventually. Need had kept him going over the edges of endurance. Exhaustion crashed down all around him after he got Obi-Wan’s shoulder tended and got Obi-Wan to drink some water, to eat a few of the round fruits sitting on the shelf.

He had not thought he’d be able to sleep out of the water - he’d held Obi-Wan through the night, once, but had not slept himself - but the heaviness in his bones outfought the discomfort. He slept, Obi-Wan held close, one of Obi-Wan’s legs thrown over his tail, the sun coming in around them both.

He dreamed of nothing, and when he woke, some time later, he barely needed to shift to kiss Obi-Wan.

Obi-Wan hummed and blinked his eyes open, clear and  _ stunning _ , bright as the sun and tangled so close to Kote. “Oh,” Obi-Wan said, a little furrow growing between his brow. “How long did we sleeping? You are alright?”

“I’m fine,” Kote said, which was mostly true. The discomfort was starting to edge closer to pain, but he could manage a little longer. Even without water, sleeping on Obi-Wan’s bed was nicer than sleeping in the tub had been. At least he could fully stretch out, even if his tail ended up down on the floor, pressed up against the door. 

He liked waking up with the warmth of Obi-Wan’s body soaking into him - Obi-Wan was so  _ warm _ , it made no sense that he got cold so quickly - and he liked that Obi-Wan’s sleep-soft expression was his alone. 

Obi-Wan frowned a little, and so Kote shifted and pressed their mouths together, softly, carefully, until Obi-Wan exhaled shakily and gripped at him. Attempting to go beyond that soft brush of touch was likely a fool’s errand - it had not been  _ that  _ many hours, he knew it took longer for Obi-Wan to recover than it took for him - but Kote enjoyed it, anyway, enjoyed pushing up onto an elbow a moment later and finding Obi-Wan flushed and with a wetted mouth.

He slid the side of his nose against Obi-Wan’s, the two of them just touching for a long, endless moment, until his fingers trailed over the ring around Obi-Wan’s finger. He traced around the band, mouth curving up, and heard Obi-Wan’s breath catch. He asked, softly, “Did you keep them? The pearls?”

Obi-Wan made a quiet sound and said, “Yes. I’m having them--” He started to shift, as though to reach for them, and Kote nudged him back down. He didn’t want to stir from the bed yet, wanted to preserve this moment as long as possible. 

He said, as Obi-Wan settled back. “Good. I’m glad.” He met Obi-Wan’s gaze and smiled, thinking about later in the day, about witnesses and--

“What are they for using?” Obi-Wan asked, reaching up a hand to trace the line of Kote’s cheek, gaze so intent. 

And… Kote had waited so long to explain everything to him. He’d wanted to, before he left, but it had been so hard to find the words he was looking for in English. Obi-Wan spoke Mando’a well enough, now, that he thought that would not be a problem. And he had given Obi-Wan the ring, fulfilled that necessity for Obi-Wan’s people. It was a relief to be able to say, “For the marriage. To tell Sho’cye that you are mine and I am yours.”

Obi-Wan stared up at him, eyes wide, and Kote went on, giving him time to think, “We can perform the ceremony later today. There are enough witnesses. Yes?”

He’d learned, long ago, that he had to ask Obi-Wan for confirmation about what he wanted or thought. Obi-Wan didn’t offer such information freely. Kote waited, and then Obi-Wan pushed off of the bed, pressed their mouths together, and panted out, “Yes.”

Kote grinned, kissed him properly and nipped at his bottom lip and for a while they did not speak at all, only touched one another, settling again after a time. Kote felt a little kick of surprise when he lifted his head from laving attention on Obi-Wan’s collarbone, and found Obi-Wan’s eyes shadowed, a little frown on his mouth. “What?” Kote asked, sliding his hand, just enough to stroke his thumb across Obi-Wan’s wrist, back and forth, a little touchstone.

“Nothing,” Obi-Wan said, looking to the side, sighing when Kote squeezed his wrist. Obi-Wan swallowed and cleared his expression before continuing, “I’m just wonder what - what you will go to do. After the - the ceremony.”

And Kote had been given no choice but to learn Obi-Wan, to understand the things he said, the things he didn’t say, and the way his mind worked. There were shadows and hurts there, tangled together, that Kote wanted desperately to help him chase away.

There was a sweet relief in his chest - still - that Obi-Wan had stayed alive for him. He had worried, more than once--

Kote shoved those thoughts aside. He focused, instead, on brushing his lips across Obi-Wan’s forehead, and saying, “I’ve had some ideas.” He felt Obi-Wan stiffen, further, and that would not do, so he cleared his throat, and continued, “There are islands. Closer to Mandalore. A few are  _ very  _ close to the capital. You have a ship now.” Though it was not as large a ship as Kote had noticed the humans preferred for their long voyages. That was fine. If Obi-Wan had acquired  _ one  _ ship, Kote didn’t see why they couldn’t ensure he acquired a larger one. “We can easily guide you there.”

“What?” Obi-Wan asked, shifting around to sit. His shoulder was reddened, all around the bite, and not just from smeared blood. The blood had - at least - clotted quickly. Kix would likely complain a little about the depth of the bite. There were other marks on his skin, here and there, little stains left behind by Kote’s touch and he liked looking at them, perhaps more than was required for their current conversation.

“There are humans,” Kote said, looking up at Obi-Wan, still holding his hand. “On some of the islands. So I know there is water you can drink. Places for you to buy the food you like.”

Obi-Wan stared down at him, blinking rapidly a few times. He looked….lost. Young and confused, shoulders curling in a little as he asked, “You are wanting -- why?” 

“You’re my heart,” Kote told him, hating everything that had happened in Obi-Wan’s life that left his fingers shaking, just a little, in Kote’s grip. “My husband.” Obi-Wan started at the word, eyes getting wider. Kote could not recall using it before. He looked for the word in English and repeated it, Obi-Wan freezing. “I would have you close to me, always.”

“But--”

“I love you,” Kote interrupted, and watched him suck in a little breath, hold it, expression wondering and confused, all at once. Kote had no doubt that it would take work to get Obi-Wan to stop looking like that, every time Kote spoke the words. That was fine. He’d been told he was over-stubborn, more than once. “Come with me. I will bring you home.”

Obi-Wan made a ragged sound and curled down, pressing his lips to Kote’s forehead, his cheek, his mouth, putting up no resistance when Kote lost the battle with his self-control after a moment and rolled onto his back, pulling Obi-Wan along, after him. “Is that a ‘yes’?” Kote asked, deciding that enough hours  _ had  _ passed for Obi-Wan to make another attempt, his cock aching and--

“ _ Yes _ ,” Obi-Wan panted, stretched over him, lovely and brilliant as the sun. And the last of the ache in Kote’s chest diminished, dragged away like sand in the waves, leaving behind nothing but warmth and contentment.

He would bring Obi-Wan across the sea, find him a place to live, but, Kote decided, they were both already home.


	7. Epilogue

Peace was a state approached slowly, in fits and starts, not attainable all at once in a rush of activity and flurry. It was built, over countless little moments all fitted together, some of them taken out and rearranged or thrown to the side. 

Life was a process, a continual striving, a dance undertaken together.

They’d built a life in the shape that fitted them best, Obi-Wan considered, sitting on the edge of one of the platforms they’d set in the little lagoon where he’d bought a home and land. He had his feet in the water, ankles crossed, thumbing through a journal that had been left in town for him, a few days ago.

There was no mail service out to this property. But that was fine, he minded little. He had to go into town regularly, anyway. He’d grown used to interacting with humans, again. But he still preferred they stay far, far away from his home.

He was still wearing the bottom of the diving suit he’d worn earlier in the day. The sleeves he’d pushed off, and the fabric lay balled by his waist, the sun warming his shoulders - he’d need to put a shirt on shortly, to protect himself from the sun, but he could dry off, first - and finishing the work of drying his hair while he scanned another line for mistakes in the typing process, absently.

He did not expect to find any. But it passed the time. 

Cody had said he would be back in the late afternoon. It was still  _ morning _ , but Obi-Wan knew his husband well enough to expect him at any moment. 

His mouth crooked, distraction stealing his thoughts away from a paragraph all about coral growth on the reefs nearby. He’d been...somewhat surprised to find that anyone  _ cared  _ about the information he’d slowly been gathering about the world beneath the waves. He’d written for himself, for so long, until one of the women he’d met in town had noticed the notes and all but demanded he submit his work, somewhere. Anywhere.

Obi-Wan had not anticipated taking such an interest in marine biology, but he’d also not anticipated marriage.

He found he’d taken to both very well.

Most of his life, he’d thought of marriage as - as a dream out of his reach. But there was a ring around his finger, heavy and set with stones, and ink over his heart, all blues and golds, the patterns and shapes that had been stained into his very being, the ocean itself on his skin. 

He’d gathered more than a few other tattoos, necessary little pieces as time went on. He would never be as fully tattooed as Cody or any of his people - he did not have the same stories to tell - but….

He traced the border of the circle over his heart - the oldest of all of the marks he wore - and looked out across the clear blue sea. The water was warmer than he’d grown used to, at his little cabin and patch of gray sand. The air tended towards humidity, requiring that he keep Boga’s hair - going gray around her nose - trimmed short, lest she overheat.

She was drowsing, currently, on the platform at his back.

Obi-Wan patted her side, mouth quirking as the surface of the water broke, yet some distance away, and only briefly with a flash of gold. He stood, setting his journal aside carefully and pushing the clinging fabric of the diving suit down his legs, folding it and putting it well back from the edge. 

One of his guards - they were ever around - surfaced by the platform a moment later, and flashed a few times, all amusement before she said, “Oh, you’ve already noticed him, then?”

“He’s hard to miss,” Obi-Wan said, dry, and drew in a deep breath, before jumping off into the water. He’d gotten far better at diving into the surface, given time and practice. He kicked away from the platform, towards the deeper water, grinning when he spotted Cody, moving fast and sure. 

Cody snagged him at speed, twirling them both around through the water, as ever was his habit. He no longer worried about getting immediately to the surface, Obi-Wan curling an arm around his shoulders and a leg around his hip, pressing their foreheads together, breath held in his chest.

He could hold his breath for quite a long time, after so much practice.

Cody nuzzled back against his hair, relief all over his expression, shining out of his eyes as he curled a hand around the back of Obi-Wan’s head, holding him close and tight. And, later, they would tangle together, relearn one another’s bodies. Later, Cody would tell him all that had happened in the capital, and Obi-Wan would offer what advice he could. Later, Cody would read his article in the journal and they would press close again, perhaps on the soft, white sands of the beach.

But that was later. In that moment, Obi-Wan closed his eyes and clung closer to his husband, and let peace spread out from the center of his chest, from his heart, ever in Cody’s care.


End file.
